Checking the valve clearance on 1 AZ-FSE engine.

December 26, 2019

I will soon do a service on my Avensis. I have just placed an order for oil, filters and sparkplugs from Opie Oils. I will then check the valve clearance. I noticed a few months ago when I checked the compression that one sparkplug didn´t look ok. I might also get new ignition coils too, but I have not decided that yet.

Unfortunately this engine has a mechanical driven high pressure fuel pump (up to 13MPa) that has to be removed to check the valve clearance. There is 3 different back-up rings and an o-ring on the fuel-pipe and those are non-reusable parts. I have searched all over the internet to find those, but I could not find them. I will go to Mr T tomorrow and ask them to get those spares I will need.

If the clearance is too big I will need to get new lifters too. Is there any way to know the thickness of the lifters without lifting the camshafts? Wich lifter size had the engine when it was new? It feels like it is not service friendly to dismantling half of the fuel system twice and lifting the camshafts twice. First to find out which lifter you have in the engine and then once more to change to the new lifters. I will need the car to get to the job etc...

How often do you need to replace the lifters? The car has 270 000 km on the clock.

I don´t have any experience of this before. I checked the valves on my old Carina E, but I did not need to change any shims when I had that car.

Has anyone here done this before on their 1 AZ-FSE engine and could give me some advises.

January 12, 2020

Here is an update on how to check the valve clearance on the 1AZ-FSE engine.

The gaskets needed to the fuel system is only found at Toyota, and they where quite expensive. Well I also bought a new camshaft cover gasket and a gasket to the camchain tensioner if needed. The camshaft cover gasket was very needed as the old was very old.

I spent long time trying to remove the contact to the fuelpump under the backseat to discharge the fuel pressure. I didn't manage to do that. Then I remembered that I read in the old Haynes book about the Carina E I once had that you could remove a fuse instead to do it an alternate way. I removed the IG2 fuse and made some starts to get rid of the fuel pressure.

It was rather easy to access everything. After removing the airinlet duct the high pressure pipe became very easy to unbolt. It was very difficult to get it back with the new o-ring and 3 different backup rings. I need to get me a new torque wrench as I don't have any for torques between 20 and 40 Nm. Most of the torques on the fuel system was around 30 Nm.

I had trouble to see if I where on the TDC. The markings where not clear, or at least difficult to see. But it looked like I was on the TDC both on the markings on the belt pulley and on the camshafts. I double checked with the workshop manual in the computer and also in the Haynes book for the T22 Avensis as they came with 1AZ-FSE engine in the end.

The valve clearance was all within the tolerance. I was surprised that one inlet valve and one exhaust valve was on their min values. I would not be surprised if it had been their max values.

I understand that Toyota say that valve clearance checks is made by listening on the valves every 90 000 km, as it took me a couple of hours (4-5 hours).

As my car passed 270 000 km the other week and I do have problems with an O2 sensor even though I have changed all 4 of them and the whole exhaust catalyst pipe. I really wanted to lift the camshaft cover and have a look how it looks like and check the valves with feeler blades.

I changed the sparkplugs as it was time for that too and they had to be removed to crank the engine to the TDC.

I changed the air inlet filter, but it was quite clean. Well I do take it out and vaccuum it sometimes when I clean interior of the car. The cabin filter was very, very dirty. I am surprised there could be so much dirt in that filter.