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head gasket replacement almost finished

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Tate Owen Engstrand, Jan 19, 2023.

  1. Tate Owen Engstrand

    Tate Owen Engstrand New Member

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    Hello. This is my first post. I'd like to start by thanking everyone for their hard work in this forum. Using information I've found here, I've already saved a few thousand dollars.

    I have a 2011 Gen 3 Prius, just past 200K. I did not replace the air intake manifold in time, my EGR cooler clogged, and I started getting the characteristic engine rocking about 40K ago. Since then, I've cleaned both those components and installed a catch can.

    I've also been driving on a blown head gasket for a while. The head gasket is definitely blown: there's a steady loss of coolant, which led to sludge build-up throughout the engine. I purchased a head gasket replacement set and started the tear down soon after the holidays. The old head gasket was flat as a pancake.

    Everything is put back together as of this morning, but a few details are bothering me, and I haven't started the car up again. I wanted to check in here and get advice, or at the least a pep talk.

    1) After restoring the valve train and while restoring the timing chain, I noticed the marks were slightly out of alignment. I had to rotate the engine slightly counterclockwise to get the marks to line up. (Fun fact: Engine flush eats the painted timing chain marks.)

    2) After restoring the timing chain tensioner, I rotated the engine clockwise but have not heard a click. It's possible the click occurred but I didn't hear it. One video I watched says to rotate the engine counterclockwise. Gasketmasters' head gasket replacement video does not give a special procedure for engaging the tensioner.

    3) I had to rewire a couple of pigtails. The two in question are directly wired to one another. One sits on a connector bolted to the front of the block (underneath the air intake manifold). This pigtail is wired directly to another pigtail which attaches with a clip to the dipstick bracket. I did not carefully note which wires were connected to which pins. The pigtails are oriented in such a way that I connected the right-hand pin on one to the right-hand pin on the other, and similarly connected the right-side pins. If this is incorrect, what are the consequences?

    Thanks for any thoughts.
     
  2. ASRDogman

    ASRDogman Senior Member

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    Did you resolve the wiring problem? Have you started the Prius?
    Everything working correctly?

     
  3. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk EGR Fanatic

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    The Repair Manual says to depress and lock the tensioner, install, then rotate crankshaft slightly counterclockwise (normal rotation is clockwise), to release the tensioner mechanism.
     
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Yes, counterclockwise, because that's how you pull on the stretch of the chain lying against the tensioner. (A wrench on the exhaust camshaft turning it slightly clockwise would have the same effect.)

    The sensor beneath the intake manifold sounds like the knock sensor:

    [​IMG]

    Looks like the wire colors are white and black, and should connect white to white and black to black at the DG1 pigtail connector, and white to pin 1 and black to pin 2 of the G1 knock sensor connector itself.

    g1.png

    (The connector shell itself is black plastic, there.)
     
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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