MX83 Cressida Project Part 1

I'm copying this stuff from my build thread on our club forum, putting it here so I can share it with the public.

3/24/13
I bought this pretty thing today. It has a blown head gasket, the radio is broken, and the AC needs to be recharged, but supposedly everything else on the car works fine. It has around 193k miles. I plan on fixing the head gasket and either using it as a daily driver or selling it.

Here are the pictures from the VADriven thread

Some additional pictures of the rust spots:

Here's a picture of it when we loaded it on the trailer:

5/11/13
Finally broke ground on this project and got my hands dirty today. I'll have pictures up tomorrow, but basically all of the wiring harness up to the fuel injectors is disconnected, the intake piping is off, radiator is out (to make access easier, also I think the radiator may be cracked), accessory belts are off, lots of little things removed/disconnected (PCV system which is hella nasty, will be cleaned before reinstall, the super-convoluted throttle linkages, battery, lots of vacuum lines, etc). Intake manifold plenum is only held on with one bolt right now, then that can come off and I can have access to the fuel rail/injectors. I also sprayed the exhaust heat shield nuts with PB and that will come off tomorrow as well, then I'll hit the manifold bolts with PB multiple times for multiple days before even attempting to remove them.

 5/12/13
Also got a bunch done today with Corey's help. The head is now off.
Cracked radiator. New one off Rock Auto is like $100

Misc bits

Head

Gasket was pretty trashed

Before and after:

Ordered a radiator, valve cover bolts/sealing washers, and fuel injector o-rings. I'm gonna go by Toyota tomorrow and order the few other gaskets I need, then we should be good to go in terms of parts. Then I just gotta take the head into the machine shop tomorrow or Tuesday.

Spent so far:
Head gasket/intake manifold gasket/exhaust manifold gasket - $210
Fuel injector o-rings - $11
Radiator - $115
Valve cover bolts (to replace retarded philips head screws) with sealing washers - $21

Total spent : $357

Expenses to come:
Machine shop labor for milling the head
Parts -
Crush washers (should be cents each):
upper filter - fuel line
upper fuel line - fuel rail
cold start injector fuel line
front fuel line - fuel rail
lower water outlet fitting

Gaskets (hopefully only a couple bucks each):
water outlet housing - head
lower intake manifold - upper intake manifold
throttle body - intake manifold
Idle speed control valve - intake manifold
EGR - head
EGR - intake manifold

Hoses: (ventilation hose will be kinda pricy, but it's pre-formed and a weird size):
ventilation - 12263-42010
a metric ass ton of small screw-on type hose clamps to replace the god-awful pinchy types

 5/13/13
 7M head fits in my trunk. Nice.

 5/14/13
Previous total: $357
Plus all the above listed gaskets/seals/o-rings (plus VC and cam gaskets): $177
Fel-Pro valve stem seals from Amazon: $37

New total: $571


5/16/13
Radiator + crap ton of Toyota gaskets

5/28/13
Head is back from the machine shop.

New total is $650


5/28/13
Also started replacing the valve stem seals tonight. The tool for removing the valve spring retainers was too big so I had to grind it down a bunch, but now it works. I got 13/24 done before I came in and cleaned up, since I have to work early tomorrow.

5/30/13
Got some work done tonight. I picked up my torque wrench and a tube of RTV from the Ju house and grabbed some new spark plugs from Advance.
Spark plugs: $22

Also ordered a distributor o-ring and the lower injector o-rings from Lithia Toyota (I got the upper injector o-rings on accident previously) :$28

New total spent:
$700

I lost one of the head bolt washers too, so I'll be picking that up form Toyota tomorrow.

Here's how I did the valvetrain stuff

First you remove the lifter buckets (making sure to keep them in order or God help you)

Then I used this tool that I bought off of Amazon or Ebay or somewhere. It ended up being too big around to fit down in the hole (giggidy) so I had to grind it down to fit, which made the magnet not want to stay in place which was annoying after having to use it on 24 valves, but it still worked so whatever.

You place it over the valve spring hat and give it a whack. When the spring compresses, the magnet sucks up the valve keepers, and you can pull out the spring, hat, and keepers together since they all stick to the magnet.

Once it's all out you can reach down in there with some needle-nose pliers to get at the valve stem seal

Just give it a yank and it comes right out (giggidy). A couple of them were really stuck so I had to use picks and stuff to shred them before they would come out, but most were really easy.

Then you take one of the new seals, and dip it in some oil before you install it. Lube is never a bad thing.

I used a 9mm socket to press them down into place. Then you can set the valve spring back in its place.

This is the upper valve spring hat and the valve keepers. These things are VERY small.

 Put them together like so

They go on top of the valve spring like this

 This is the keeper installer tool. The little nub in the middle is spring-loaded, so when you press down, the outer ring compresses the spring over the stationary valve, and the middle nub makes the valve keepers fall into place around the valve stem

Reassembly is done! Cams are in, cam oil seals are in, everything is torqued properly.

And here's a shot of the nice clean combustion chambers