Originally Posted by stooks
I've got a2008 toyota sienna, 205k, that developed what I was told was a rod knock. It was not ran with low/no oil. The sound is intermittent, particularly prominent with a mid range load on the engine. When the knocking was very loud the oil light flickered on the dash(oil was full) It is loud, but has been driven very little with the noise. A trusted mechanic friend told me that the engine needed to be replaced (he told me he was too busy to do it).
While hunting around for a cheap replacement motor; I came across videos and discussion of just replacing the rod bearings as a stopgap measure. I though it might be worth it to save $2k on the replacement. I got the upper and lower oil pan off tonight, and none of the rod ends are loose. They all have a limited amount of play side to side (maybe .005"), but are tight in up/down movement.
The oil pickup tube in the pan was pretty gunked up on the bottom.
Other then that the pan, and associated parts were surprisingly clean with that many miles on it.
Was this wrongly diagnosed? Are all the bearings bad? Any other ideas?
A blocked oil pick up could cause all your issues. I'd give that a first class cleaning, and see if the problem goes away.
Not saying it couldn't be the bearings or other, but I've heard engines that sound like that when starved of oil. Good thing it hasn't been driven much.
