Well. At some point in time, I once said I would like to drive my car until something catastrophic happens. The moment came last Saturday. Heard a could loud metal knocks, which isn't a good thing, when I was about 10 blocks away from where I was supposed to be at the time. I study Auto Tech (fix cars), so I'm capable of swapping an engine and I was somewhat sure that was the problem. I towed my car back to school to fix it. Since I have no school for a week (spring break) and the engine can't come in time before the holiday, there is time to do a detailed inspection.

As it turned out #1 cylinder is shot.

These metal pieces are found on top of the oil and does not suggest anything small at all.


Looking inside the oil pan suggests it's something major.


The connecting rod is damaged


The block is also damaged too


I noticed a metal piece on top of the oil pickup tube and didn't realize it's the wrist pin until it dropped on the floor.


I was being made fun of by my instructor that I have a problem and how can I possibly blow up a Toyota. The thing is the particular engine I have is known not a strong engine if you're unlucky. Now let the remove and replacement begin!

What model of Toyota?

Toyota Matrix with the 1ZZ-FE. This engine can be found in the 9th gen Corolla/7th gen Celica/1st gen Voltz/1st gen Matrix/1st gen Pontiac Vibe (same as the Voltz). There is an earlier version where the intake manifold is metal.

You can buy a TRD/GM Performance Supercharger (same unit, different badge) to slap it on, which is discontinued. If you're not lucky, you can have a blown 1ZZ-FE <100K miles/160K kilometers with little to no mods.

Any idea of the cause?

I had a 3E-E fail catastrophically. That thing got a ton of abuse.

stick? did u miss-shift?

How on earth did you kill a corolla. My corolla will run dry on oil for months without complaining!

Quote from e2mustang :

stick? did u miss-shift?

Nope. It's an automatic. You can't blow it by miss-shift.

Quote from sil3ntwar :

How on earth did you kill a corolla. My corolla will run dry on oil for months without complaining!

You're just plain lucky. Wait until you make hard turns and see if your low oil pressure light comes on (by then you have near zero pressure). What year is your Corolla?

Quote from Ricerguy :

Any idea of the cause?

Nope.

I started working on it today. Showed a couple people of the blown internals. This time, however, it looks like the top of the piston is still inside. At the end of the day I was like "let's rinse the wrist pin in the parts washer so I can take home as a paperweight". It's deformed on one side and has a couple cracks.

Quote from sil3ntwar :

My corolla will run dry on oil for months without complaining!

Clearly it wasn't dry on oil then.

Quote from madbikes :

You're just plain lucky. Wait until you make hard turns and see if your low oil pressure light comes on (by then you have near zero pressure). What year is your Corolla?

1989. Purchases brand new by my parents. Been crashed and written off 3 times by my brothers. Oil pressure light comes on when turning hard. Haven't checked the oil for awhile but im willing to bet that when i do it will be below the minimum mark. It has done 220,000 ks.

New cars suck. My parents had 1991 Corolla 1.3 . It has been abused badly, but never broke down, and it is still being abused by some crazy relatives without a single failure.

Lots of rust though

*Jamie Hyneman on* "Well there's your problem" *Jamie Hyneman off*

Quote from madbikes :

Nope. It's an automatic. You can't blow it by miss-shift.

really? lol my buddy had a very fast 318 ti with all m3 shit,and he mis-shift at 130. i did the job and let me tell ya that shit blew up !
(if u ment manual,if not,never mind)

Time for an upgrade, 2zz perhaps?

Quote from senn :

Time for an upgrade, 2zz perhaps?

Nah...

gf ran her rolla down to low oil, getting onto the freeway (large onramp) the car started to die, power steering went heavy, brakes didnt work very good, and it wouldn't rev.

turns out it went into limp mode due to low oil pressure because she had low oil, and turning around the corner starved the engine.

topped up on the middle of the freeway and kept chugging along 250km.

that thing has seen so much abuse and never died, its great.

Quote from senn :

Time for an upgrade, 2zz perhaps?

Buying a 2ZZ-FE Matrix will save me time in the long run. Besides, doing a swap like that is quite a bit of work and the car can worth nothing. Actually, if your car is auto, just by converting to manual will loose a good chunk of value of the car. Besides, a lot of people don't know I have a deadline to meet to get the car out of school. So no time to mess around with thing like that.

ok... the engine is out of the car with the transaxle. Since I have to separate the transaxle, I was able to make the engine spin freely. It turned out a small part of the connecting rod was lodged on the crankshaft that was preventing me to crank it. Now I have a damaged wrist pin and connecting rod as paperweight. The bottom of the connecting rod is still on the crank.

Quote from madbikes :

Actually, if your car is auto, just by converting to manual will loose a good chunk of value of the car..

US only i guess...in europe manual is worth more >_>

Quote from [RCG]Boosted :

US only i guess...in europe manual is worth more >_>

Brand new Auto is more expensive but second hand manual is worth more...

Funny how that works.

That'll work.

Alright... I took a couple pictures of the paperweight I obtained from the engine so far.

Out of shape wrist pin. The other side seems ok.
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... 20replace/IMG_9999con.jpg

I needed to find out how the engine is jammed so I can remove the flex plate (mine is automatic). As it turned out the top portion of the connecting rod was preventing the engine from turning. That didn't take long to remove.
http://img.photobucket.com/alb ... 20replace/IMG_0007con.jpg

Cool cool.

lol i don't even know if i'd bother with a post mortem. Looks like some fairly large chunks were flying around in there, more than enough to damage it beyond repair :/