2000 Hilux 1KZ-TE in 96' KZH100G What should a mechanic know

96' Super Custom G, KZH100G-MRPGT
3L Turbo diesel. Auto. 2WD.

What should a mechanic know before attempting to fit a 2000 Hilux 1KZ-TE?

What should I ask the wrecker to check before getting it delivered for any compatability roadblocks up front?

Really appreciate any killer advice.

Ill be going home without the van if it cant work out sadly.

Regards,
Zee

So im getting the auto recycler to send a couple photos through. I think the technician mainly wants to check Cam positioning and if exhaust port is square or round, to avoid manifold swap.

Heres mine:

0 compression cylinder 3.

Donor 1KZ-TE:

Hello.

From a quick squint at that pallet engine I don’t see any immediate red flags. There’s a label on the front top so it might be useful to get a view of it to check it’s what it is, plus any stamped numbers etc.

A useful site to check parts compatibility between models and also generally for vehicle stuff is the Toyota Electronic Parts Catalogue. For my van (a LH119) it’s:

https://toyota.epc-data.com/regius_ace/lh119v/114894/

You should alter this to your exact vehicle as given on the plate you posted above.

Also, if you’ve not got the manuals etc from:

https://www.hiacesoutheast.com/

Then get them. There’s a load of other useful stuff on their site.

Does this engine come with any sort of warranty?

I notice the donor engine had a manual gearbox so that’s something to check for compatibility. You might need to use your engine plate (that sits under the flywheel) as this has the mounting holes for the bell housing. It might be that the bell housing for manual and auto boxes has exactly the same mounting to the engine, but you don’t want to get the engine in place only to find something doesn’t fit properly. You might find you need to use your old engine’s flywheel, too. I’ve never compared the flywheels of autos and manuals but the garage should know, but ask!

You’ll also need your old starter (and alternator and A/C pump of course and thier belts) and this points to two other areas.

1 – how much work to do on the donor engine?  It’s unlikely to come with much service history so you have to decide whether to do the timing belt and water pump, for example. This isn’t too difficult to do with the engine in, but for piece of mind it’s something to think about. I think I would. Also oil and filter.

2 – what to do with the old bits? Can you sell them to the garage to lessen the cost of the work or can you keep them for spares? The things that come to mind are the fuel pump, turbo and fan clutch but there are probably a few other valuable bits that you can probably sell on or keep.

Hope this helps.

@LH119V

Unsure where my reply went, but in short, thank you very much. I will re-read again and respond when I know more. The engine has 3month warranty and this mechanic is well respected and has confidence in them.

I have two more queries. Clarifying a post ive read re swaps that the 2WD and 4WD supercustom differ by 5 bolts on former and 6 on the latter hub. And the 4x4 manual hilux this 1KZte donor comes from is likely 6. Its just im not entirely sure what is meant by the hub, and if this is the bell housing you mention.
As in is this an issue fitting the 4x4 engine in, or is this something further down the drive train and I neednt worry as I have all the parts needed for swapping for auto on the current 1KZte.

Secondly, im pretty concerned that the wiring looms (being 6+years apart and coming from a ute to a van) will vary significantly. It this a show stopped headache? Or because I have all the componentry for the van, I should be about to use existing wiring for most of it.etc
I dread the idea of spending 6k only to need an auto-elec to get it running.

I will ask these things tomorrow to the team, but mainly want to get my shit straight before I do, so im more helpful than confusing.

I read elsewhere someone had to grind off the mountings and reposition. Ive done a bit of welding but im not in my comfortzone here. How likely is it to need fabrication to do this fit of one 1KZte for another 1KZte.

Thanks again, its extremely helpful, ill mention the flywheel. I need some confidence from them that theyve fully considered the job before taking it on for me (which I already appreciate they are willing).

Kind regards

OK.

Don’t worry about the comment on the stud pattern. I think this refers to the wheel hubs and yes, the 4WD vans have a 6 stud wheel pattern. I’ve no idea about the 2WD variants (does you van have 5 wheel nuts per wheel?) but I think this post was referring to a drivetrain swap, which would be a whole heap of pain, but not where you are going!

I can’t comment on the wiring, but it looks like both the crate engine and the current one are both 1KZ-TE so from a mechanical and alignment problem I think you should be sound. The engine mounts should be fine and the rear engine mount is on top of the gearbox (see later). Again some of the posts you’ve added seem to be referring to swaps between 3L / 5L and 1KZ and this might indeed be more complicated and require different or modified engine mounts.

You can see the engine progression on the Hiacesoutheast site here:
https://www.hiacesoutheast.com/hiace-info

And as previously stated get all the info you can from there.

In his posts, Mick seems to discuss differences in the old v newer 1KZ-T(E) engines and different heads and changes from mechanical to electronic injection. I’m not quite sure what is being referred to here as I don’t have one of these engines, but it seems that the later ones have a stronger head (=good) and there were updates to the fuel pump about the same time. Your pictures don’t show the fuel pump in great detail but I wonder if this is listed on the engine tag on the pallet engine? There should be a tag on the pump on your engine with both a model and serial number.

Important bit: if the fuel pumps are the same then this should make the swap much easier and there should be many fewer wiring difficulties. Perhaps none. If the pumps are different and across the mechanical / electrically-controlled divide then this might be a red flag. A work around might be to replace the engine but re-use your van’s pump if they are different but I can’t be definitive. Like for like would be better. Can you get the engine number (which is stamped on) and check for similarity.

While you mention the vehicle ages are ~6y apart it’s possible that different markets and manufacturing plants, lines or models didn’t swap to different components at the same time. Also, I don’t know whether it’s easier to go old to new or the other way round, if you have to. The Hiacesoutheast site has a ’99 version of the 1KZ-TE manual and refers to a wiring publication. Hopefully your garage can advise but it’s worth doing as much homework as you can. If you have the same number of engine wiring plugs and they look the same then this is probably a good start!

Lastly on the flywheel etc, set up the EPC in two browser tabs with one as a M/T (a KZH100G-MRMGT) and another as an autobox (-MRPGT like yours) then see what’s different in parts between the two variants. I note that your (auto) model was made up to 2004 so that gives hope for a wide variety of engines, too!

The good thing is that both a manual and autobox variant was fitted in your van and used a 1KZTE so there has to be a way to make the pallet 1KZ-TE engine fit your auto and I’d be amazed if your engine doesn’t have the exact bits to make this work, you just need to know what to swap. If the flywheel is coming off the old engine to go on the new(er) one it’s probably worth replacing the rear main engine oil seal.

A good video snippet that includes this is the Timmy the Toolman clutch swap (albeit this is a manual of course), see:


The oil seal is near the beginning of this two-vid set. This also shows the ‘engine plate’ that might need to be swapped.

As an aside I’ve found this useful for my clutch work!








The last picture shows removing the pilot bearing using the bread and grease method as I dont have a blind puller. I've no idea if this is part of the auto setup but it picks up and holds the gearbox input shaft on M/T and this is the only picture I have that shows the read or the engine crank.

Something else to think about is whether it's easier just to remove the current engine and leave the gearbox in place or remove both the engine and gearbox together to then mate the new engine to the old gearbox and reinatall. I just don't know and can see strengths and weaknesses of both, especailly as your likely donor engine is a manual.

You might want to check the condition of the rear engine mount, too:




Mine was toast and it's not an expensive part (~£20) but hard to change with the gearbox in place. i found it easier to remove it from the top of the gearbox and then take it out for the swap along with the top bracket once the gearbox was out as the main bolt / pin wouldn't budge. The bracket on mine looks like this:




If I was doing this I'd buy lots of ziplock bags!

And offer to help in the garage with parts labelling etc!

Getting access to the hatch will make it a lot easier to access the rear of the engine / bell housing


The more prep work the cheap the bill!

There are probably YT vids for manual to auto swaps. While I realise you are not doing this, you are wanting to convert a manual engine to an auto, but you already have the autobox installed. If in doubt ask:

https://www.youtube.com/c/WholesaleAutomatics/about

HTH!

Dammit typing on mobile is a pain, I hit the back page button halfway through by mistake.

Your reference images and insights are amazing. It's funny you mentioned ziplock bags, ive ductaped a couple with bolts for seats and covers to the seats. Great idea for all the componentry and parts! I was wondering what access looked like through the back hatch, thankyou!

Today I sat down with the engine's technical document you linked and got familiar with why a replacement vs teardown is the better option. I noticed today when refitting the intake that ill probably need to clean out the turbo if going ahead with the swap because:



Yeap the main intake hose from the airfilter has a hole, and judging by the clean but loose clamp, the last person who noticed gave up. Or its just brittle and bumpy roads cracked it, potentially into my impeller. A few bare wires here and split hoses there and im losing confidence.

Also the cooling line from the radiator for transmission isnt connected, and I noticed a tiny bit of coolant there, which is why they likely disconnected it from the trans, not sure if auxillary cooler elsewhere in its stead.

The 550k kms on the donor engine worries me and I asked for a frame number among other things, to which they said 'as in supplied photos', without any new photos.

A refurb exchange costs 1000$ more, so 4750$, but... the 12month warranty is void if new injectors arent fitted at roughly 200$ each.

So id be looking at 7550$ minimum, But probably blow out to 8 or 9k knowing Hiccups are likely and cost of time. Then im thinking of the powersteering pump on its last legs, potential  trans leak if its not the powersteering making its way down there.

Then getting it home and going through roadworthy to change plates, prob have to do front tires and rear suspension minimum.

So ive been looking at putting a t-piece on the return line, cutting the 3rd injector line from the pump and running it into the return, to stop the overfueling and smoke enough to consider it a runner for the purposes of freighting it home (has to go on a ferry from Tas to mainland).
If not that then drive it a suburb over to a friend's lawn.

Considering Id need to 0 my bank and business assets, i might be better leaving it. Keeping my business going, and use the capital to earn enough for one in my home state.

Im not scared of a challenge, but ive been camped outside the mechanic for two weeks. I came here for a two week holiday and its been 6months.

Ive spent about 6k on fixing the van prior to this and another 2k for whats in it, and I doubt ill get that back leaving it here rolling for parts... but I need to be realistic about my situation. I cant afford it. My honda is waiting for me back home.

Giving up on the van sucks, but considering dropping a 550k kms engine in for 6k$ makes me feel like I was dropped as a baby.

Tricky.

I’m not here to sway you one way or the other but here are some comments on your last post.

That air hose need to be replaced, especially if that’s supposedly filtered air going in to the turbo. My van is not a turbo but I noticed the corrugated hose within the engine bay was cracked but seeming reasonably intact:


I’ll be replacing but probably with a piece of silicone as that's about a quarter of the price of the OEM hose. It’s not just dirty air that can get sucked in but the pieces of hose (especially the inner lining) that can destroy turbo or valves in my case.

Cooling on these vans is crucial and there are lots of posts on here about this. I’ve replied to a few posts on this and after saying the same thing a couple of times I pulled together all my bits (to date) into a post on my van. It’s here: https://hiace-super-custom.forumotion.com/t4317-my-lh119 (scroll down below the pictures of the rear brakes).

The vehicle layout doesn’t lend itself to good cooling and I think the turbo vans are especially sensitive. Those without intercoolers are probably most prone to overheating as they are running on hotter compressed intake air rather than after it’s been ‘intercooled’. Intercoolers (like yours) also improve the efficiency as the intake air is cooler. Also, the increased fuelling that comes with turbo boost generally leads to more heat, which has to be managed. I think most if not all turbo vans have the double radiator setup with the vertical one, plus a horizontal one that’s sandwiched with the A/C. The non-turbos (well mine, anyway) just has the single vertical radiator. The horizontal one is just the A/C on mine. Finally here, on the turbos the thermostat operates at lower temps. That says it all.

I have a manual but I think the autos have pipes to connect to a heat exchanger built into the main vertical radiator. The EPC shows these. I’ve read a few posts on here where various bits of the system have failed and coolant has mixed with ATF, or the pipes have corroded and needed replacing (not too hard) or the system is bypassed and the transmission is seemingly not connected to another cooler, which I think is bad. Heat is the enemy of autos. If I had an auto I’d not use the original heat exchanger-setup within the main radiator but install a separate exchanger like is common on most autos. The radiator needs to be there for engine cooling and failure can toast the engine, gearbox and cooling system. Not cool!

I’d be concerned about 550k km, too. In 30y my van has done ~250k (km) and I have service history back to ~2009 which was ~126k km, which I sort of trust, plus MOT records back to 2006 with 112k. It’s always possible things have been fudged but it seems unlikely. Still, I’ve got plenty of issues! More below.

I’d say that overheating (heat gasket failure) is the most likely cause why you have no compression on cylinder 3, unless it’s valve or some other related problem. After a leak-down (or compression) test usually the next step is to remove the glow plus or injector and stick a camera in there to check for coolant / scored walls / carbon / piston damage / stuck valve. Other diagnoses for head gasket include chemical test for combustion gasses in the coolant, over pressurisation of the coolant or coolant in the exhaust (or coolant / oil mix).

When I bought my van the previous owner warned me about ‘issues’ with the power-steering, usually after starting. These can be serious but are usually not and commonly relate to pump starvation due to excess crap on the filter gauze or desperately old fluid. I had both. Easy fix. Yes, you might have a leak, probably just a hose. If the gearbox has been disconnected from its radiator cooler it’s unlikely to be ATF, unless it’s leaking from the remnant gearbox cooling. Not a deal breaker but an issue.

Can’t comment on your ‘roadworthy’ but could pick up plenty of other things. Tyres are consumable. Rear suspension, who knows?

Seems like you need to carefully consider your options, or have you already decided? It’s always more difficult and probably more expensive to act in haste (repent in leisure as they way) or be remote. It’s never easy to walk away but…?

You have a ~26y old vehicle with somewhat unknown history and known shortcomings that you can't fully quantify. Your van is ideally in need of extensive remidial work. I've been able to take my ~30y van off the road for this and intend to ready it for its next 30y, but it will always be an aging van.

HTH