1994 Camry 2.2L Engine Removal

Has anyone done an engine removal?

The information that I have states that the transmission must be pulled out with the engine. Apparently you can't separate the two in the engine bay.

Has anyone tried to remove the engine only?

The engine was run at >4000 rpm for a while (not sure how long), but after sitting for half an hour the engine was not running right at idle (likely still overheated block) and the oil pressure at idle was very low (dash light flashing on, almost steady). After cooling down for a four or five hours, it ran OK and held oil pressure (no light) with the sound of marbles bouncing around inside. Three rod bearing are definitely gone (piston push down test showed significant movement). I don't know if the mains were also destroyed. That will require a direct measurement.

Has anyone done any bearing replacement without removing the engine?

I'm thinking of removing the engine in pieces... I've done that before on a Ford Windstar minivan, even though the service procedures call for dropping the subframe with the power train in place, then removing the engine from the subframe. I took off the accessories & pulleys, then the manifolds, followed by the heads, then the block. Fortunately that gave me enough room to get the pilot out of the torque converter and both the pilot and flexplate past the housing.

To install, I just repeated that in reverse.

I'm hoping that this is possible on the Camry.

Do you have a service manual?

Only the alldatadiy manual right now.

Correction: I found a download. I have the 5S-FE engine manual.

I have a complete manual. If you send me your e-mail address, I will send you a link.

Thanks for the offer. I'll send a PM if I need it.

So, I have dropped the oil pan and removed the rod caps to inspect the bearings and journals... there definitely are issues here. The three bad cylinders have rod bearings that were spun in the rod big ends, two were "welded" to the rods. I measured the diameter of the scored crankshaft journals and see a bit of wear ~0.001", but the journals definitely need to be polished. The main bearings look good and measurements with Plastigauge show minimum wear (even at 240,000 mi). I'm tempted to try to clean up the crankshaft journals with the shoestring & sandpaper method rather than removing the whole thing to "do it right". However I think the rods need to be cleaned up too, so the head will need to come back off, which leaves only a bit more work to pull the block out as well.

Anyone ever try the shoestring approach to polishing a rod journal on a crankshaft? What kind of results did you get?

Would like ton see an update on how you completed the engine repair if you fixed the bad rod bearings. Fwiw, I've always heard that the 5sfe seldom will spin a rod bearing.