I tried inquring about this at the one Usenet Isuzu newsgroup but am not getting any feedback.
Friends of mine have a 2000, 3.5 Liter, 4-wheel drive, automatic transmission, Isuzu Trooper. While driving it up a large hill (really, the foothills of a serious Western mountain range), the car stopped running. I don't have the details on this, but subsequently, they had it towed to a nearby mechanic who works on Isuzus and he said it had thrown a rod. The car is currently sitting in the lot of another friend who has some background in auto/truck mechanics but has not yet had a chance to look at it. I am going to look under the hood sometime in the near future and try to verify the thrown rod and destruction of the engine. The owner said he was a bit remiss about oil changes but did have them done every 10k miles or one year at least. Some questions:
-- From my googling, a thrown rod can be very obvious: A steel rod pushes through the crankcase or engine block. Can it also be not so obvious? E.g. suppose the rod has disconnected from the piston head, and it's just banging around inside the cylinder. The latter scenario presumes the vehicle was stopped quickly. What else can I look for? I am not sure I will be able to try to start it up yet.
-- I have been making online inquiries of salvage yards about (1) used cylinder blocks; (2) used, entire engines. Dumb question but I'm not quite clear on this point: Does it matter whether the used engine was attached to a 2WD Isuzu Trooper? It seems both 2WD and 4WD Troopers, of the same 3.5 Liter engine displacement, are available.
-- I am getting quotes back in the $3k-$4k range but from yards many states away. Shipping seems pretty reasonable and common. Has anyone purchased an engine or cylinder block from several states away? What kind of assurances can I get about the condition of the engine? One seller so far has said he has a CarFax report verifying the engine has only seen 32k miles. I plan to check locally, too.
-- Evidently going up hills in too high a gear can throw a rod. The high gear translates to low revs but high torque, stressing, from what I understand, the piston rod, crankshaft, and associated bearings. Can anyone elaborate further on this? It might help me to identify whether a rod was actually thrown.
-- I understand installing a new engine is around a day's work, maybe less. This so? I am going to try to get a quote for the labor from my favorite import shop in mind but will also inquire at the nearest Isuzu dealer. Anything in particular I should ask them other than: "How much to remove an old engine and install a second-hand one?"
The owners of this car do an astonishing amount of volunteer work in animal rescue. They are down to one truck (while normally having two). Given the circumstances, your assistance is especially appreciated.
(Honda note: Isuzu has done some business on the trucking side with Honda.)