Help: Catastrophic Engine Failure 5.7L V8

You should be afraid of AC. We calibrate "thumpers" up to 120,000 DCV and 100,000 ACV at 120 milliamps FS. We have a spotter when working with ACV that high. Not with DCV. You can smell the ozone. Just sayin. Death is final....

 

12 volts is not going to kill you. Amperage is a factor if resistance, in this case the resistance of the body. I believe 40 volts is the minimum for safety purposes. It's the amperage that kills but amperage is tied directly to resistance. The human body has a high enough resistance so 12 volts will not provide enough amps to kill. Then there's the path of the current. The human heart uses electrical signals to make it beat. As a kid we tested 9 volt batteries by touching them to our tongue. The path was from one terminal across the tongue to the other terminal.

As for the OP, more information is needed. Who did the work? When exactly did it "explode"? Did anyone take the motor apart to figure out what was the cause of the failure? Did anyone check the oil level?

I've known several people who decided to see if their engine would run underwater without a snorkel. The end result is usually a bent or broken rod. But this is an engine that is running at 2000 rpm or higher. Did this happen immediately when starting up?

I can remember a local muffler and brake shop made a mistake. They let the owner of the car back it out of the bay after doing the front brakes. The pedal went to the floor and the guy panicked and made a big circle in reverse and backed into the building. The mechanic was fired because neither company policy or the insurance company allowed customers to do this. If a dealer changed the knock sensor they must have started and driven the vehicle out of the shop unless it happened while in the bay. If it happened in the bay then it'll be hard for the dealer to say it's unrelated without proof of what happened.

 

Literally a few posts before I said that, someone was calling it spam. Other people said they were "skeptical". That isn't much different than saying she is lying.

 

I’m a Substation Master technician. I work with 345KV regularly. I’ve been an instructor for years for one of the largest utilities in the US. I’ve pulled personal grounds down off AC that drew an arc to my feet. I’m well aware of the dangers. But, when I get hit with DC it bothers me more. That’s all I’m saying. Neither are pleasant.

 

Yeah. 1 post said skeptical (really 2, but the other was referring to being skeptical that it was caused by something falling in to the engine). The one who posted the spam pics said a few posts later that they didn’t really think it was spam. Out of over 60 posts. I’ll change my comment to over 96% of the posts didn’t say she was lying.

 

I read all three pages but didn’t see anything that actually seemed to help. Sorry if I missed the good answers.

knock sensors detect detonation in a cylinder and retard timing in an effort to combat it. There is nothing that could happen with either a bad sensor or a wire grounded, that would cause an engine failure. At most it would default to very retarded timing and it would be a little down on power.

Your engine was 10 years old. There is basically zero chance something metallurgically wrong with it would cause it to break at this point.

Engines window a block for one reason only. Something was loose inside the engine and a rod/crank shoved whatever it was through the side of the block. Someone said that has to happen at high rpm and that’s not true at all. I’ve watched motors do it at idle.

What dealer work was performed? It sounds like they diagnosed it, you drove it home, replaced the sensor, and the motor blew on first start, is that correct?

If so, how did you gain access to the knock sensor? I believe you have to pull the intake manifold off, and if you did I’ll almost guarantee a bolt or some other foreign object went in one of the cylinder ports and into a cylinder, or jammed a valve open which is the equivalent, which destroyed the piston, and in turn windowed the block and took out another piston/rod with debris.

Hope that helps.

 

Kuul. Not all of the members here are aware of the dangers when working with high tension situations. Your previous post didn't indicate your experience when working with high tension. The small details. Ha! When I worked for Southern Kommiefornicating Edison we would have weekly safety meetings every Thursday. A long time lineman for SCE gave a talk on measuring high tension volts. He showed pics where a helo would drop him on a high tension line and he would use a high voltage divider probe connected to a Fluke DMM. The probe was connected to live 500K at a couple hundred feet up. He had balls needless to say

 

Those guys are bat shit crazy. Live line bare handing 100s of thousands of volts is something I will never be interested in.

 

I'll try to find the pic of this guy. Back then the Fluke would have been a 70's series handheld DMM. We still get them in for calibration. The pic made it to the Orange County Register newspaper. Almost 30 years ago now. He made the hi voltage divider himself. We supported SCE San Onofre nuke plant. Across from the cal lab building was SCE's armature repair/reconditioning facility. The armature's were from SCE's hydro dams. Big mothers to say the least. Those guys earned every dime they worked for. Big $. IBEW folks. Good convos until OP chimes back in. That's if we didn't scare her off.....heh

 

I agree 100%. I call BS on this ...

 

IBEW myself. Yep, we are off track. LOL.
If this gal is legit I hope she gets her questions answered.

 

Hope she is legit too. Also explains why you have a crazy job. A good crazy job. At least you didn't spend $70K for liberal arts bs degree. This is off the track but we will need more folks like you and me. I'm hanging for at least 5 more years. I'll be 70. I love my work. I have serious reservations about replacing us now. Of course you are still young. Too much focus on worthless degrees. We can't get quality folks to replace or fill a high paying job at our cal lab. Everything pretty much needs to be calibrated or validated. I am somewhat worried about that....

 

@4Runner_1986 give us an update.....

 

You are correct. Nobody wants to do this stuff. It’s served me well and provided a great income as it has you.
When I first got into the industry I would go with line crews and be part of “thumping” line looking for faults.
Just about every piece of test equipment I utilize to do my job gets calibrated. Doble, Vanguard and Megger to name a few so thanks for what you do.

 

At least someone here knows what "thumpers" are besides me! We cal lots of Megger test equipment. Lot. TTR's especially. PM me please who calibrates your test equipment. We might be doing it already.

 

I will. We haven’t had our TTR calibrated for a while but it’s a Vanguard.

 

@4Runner_1986 be like.....

 

That's not likely to happen when parents tell their kids, "if you don't go to college, you'll clean toilets for a living"

 

knock sensor was replaced by us, not the dealer. as was able to locate part online. The dealer was 3 weeks out and had 147 parts on backorder at the man distribution center.
I am 100% confident nothing fell down any of the intakes. Engine is ready to be torn down, but finding someone reputable to tear it down is the issue. Toyota will not let you talk to a technician, will not let you video record teardown. Dealer is blaming us because we replaced the sensor & are accusing us of dropping something in it without any teardown. Corporate won't help & won't acknowledge teardown unless done by a dealer. Dealer had the vehicle for 2 weeks and all they managed to do was say, "you have a hole in the engine, you must have caused it, and here's your rig back with a dead battery. Your own your own getting it our of our shop"

 

@4Runner_1986 so just to be clear - a Toyota dealership diagnosed a faulty knock sensor and that a rat chewed the wires... then you replaced the sensor... then you took it back to the dealership after it blew up at home?

 

You opened up the engine then it blew up after you put it back together.

There is no way this is Toyota's fault.

 

3pgs.... 2 posts by OP.....vague

This thread is

After a 150mile drive home and DIY knock sensor replacement, it then detonates on start up.

How is this Toyota's fault?




Sorry for your loss OP.

 

Yeah. You are 100 percent on your own there.

 

I have agree with the dealer on this one based on the info provided. Or the rat. Poor, poor rat.

 

Unfortunately, @4Runner_1986 100% of the repair cost for this will be on you. Sorry for your misfortune.

All the dealer did was diagnose a bad knock sensor, and send you away saying it was safe to drive home 150 miles. And, he was right, it was safe to drive. You found and bought the replacement part, and installed it yourself. Two cylinders holed the block on startup. It's a mystery what caused this failure, but the dealer can't take responsibility for your parts, and your labor, done at your location.

 

I have never heard of a bad knock sensor causing a rod to be thrown. I would like to know the final outcome tho. I switched from Ford because of the reliability and longevity of Toyota engines.

 

Sorry about your motor ElkHunter, but this one is on you.