Hi Scotty, I'm a big fan from Nigeria, learnt alot about cars and their histories from you. My 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado automatic transmission just broke down on my way to work, the engine Check light has been on ever since I bought the car early this year, so I never bodered to check it out. At first I heard what we call here a knocking sound (metals and bearings) from the engine which was quite loud, I really don't know if I it's the oil pump that went bad because I check the engine oil gauge every morning, I'll also like to know what else could've been the cause. Lastly, before this incident my mechanic told me to set the valves because it sounded like a desiel engine but another mechanic told me it has automatic valves and that I should never set it, I'm confused
1997 TOYOTA LAND CRUISER PRADO 2.4 GX
Have you checked the oil level? What's the code you got on the dash?
The check engine light could have been a range of things. The mechanics you spoke to should have been able to connect a OBD2 scanner and this would have given the fault.
One thing it could be is that you have a cracked piston from oil starvation. When these diesel engines get old there can be a build up of carbon and sometimes this carbon can block the oil pick up. One way to check is : every time the oil is changed - when the sump plug is taken out is to shine a light through the sump plug hole.
The oil pick up when clean should just look like a clean mesh, if blocked you will see carbon clogging up the mesh. With these older diesel engines the oil should be changed every 3000 miles or 5000kms.
Probably not a good idea to drive it as worse case you could seize the engine or maybe it could be a more straight forward problem with the fuel pump.
