5VZ FE heads interchangeable

Morning all.

I am mid project doing my head gasket and such on my 97' with the 5vzfe. I was told by many people the heads are fully interchangeable. And I was only able to find two drivers side heads that pressure test okay. See picture of the two drivers side heads.

Now when I move one of them to the left so the intake and exhaust ports match, it looks like everything matches but the Cam. Clearly you need different Cams for the passenger side. Any tricks to this or just use normal passenger side cams? Anyone had to do this witb a drivers side head and make it a passenger side head?

Picture attached.

 

When I pulled my heads I read something about this because my parts got scrambled and what you are saying is correct-

As you discovered, head castings left vs right are identical, cams are side specific.
I believe there is a bracket that is attached to the pass side for the wire harness.

Since you are using cams that did not originally come with the head I would plastigauge the cam journals, the spec is the same as engine main bearings which is quite narrow (going from memory). I have never heard anyone having an issue with cam journal clearance though, as long as its not too tight I suppose. Cam should turn freely, which may not seem to make sense given that its always pressing on valves but you can tell if its binding - I once got a cap backwards and the cam was binding a bit.

 

Thank-you Alex. That's a great help.

I will check the cam journals and certainly be checking all the valve lashings for correct spacing. Anything else you recommend I'm all ears.

I do have the service bolt ready for when I load the exhaust Cam.

Thanks.

 

The only issue I had was on one cam cap in the rear I almost cross threaded it because its so close to the plug tube the socket caused the bolt to tilt. I was oh noooooooooo as you can imagine. But it only damaged about 1/8 inch of threads so I was able to get it going straight.

When I was cleaning the head surface with brake cleaner just before install on the block I tilted the head too much and a few of the buckets came out, another oh no moment but it was obvious which holes they all came from.

Its a good idea to spray out the head bolt holes on the block with brake cleaner and then run an old bolt down the holes (very tedious) to check for excess friction - I think Yotashop sells a cleanout tap for this but you shouldn't need it. On some blocks coolant tends to get in those bolt holes and if not removed the block can crack when heads torqued but this is not usually a problem with Toyota apparently.

As you already know working on a 4x4 with all the extra work these heads entail compared to other cars it can get really tiring because you are constantly reaching/stretching and I even had to use a step stool in the rear.

Other than that just follow FSM to the letter