NHW11 Accident repair - Transaxle

So my wife is on her second NHW11 and accidentally ran straight over a curb at ~25 MPH. It was in a construction zone with no streetlights but lots of flashing lights. She thought that she could go through an intersection and make a left, but found out the hard way that there was a narrow curb so that you can't make a left at that point.

I drove out late at night and changed out the Left Front tire that was blown with a bent rim. I did notice a slow leak underneath, but other than the fact that the alignment was WAY out of whack the car actually seemed to drive just fine. No warning lights of any kind. Got it home and parked in the driveway. The following day I cleaned out my working stall in my garage and pulled it in, noting that there was about a half cup or so of liquid that had leaked out on the driveway, and it seemed fine then too.

Up on jackstands in my garage I took full survey of the damage. The lower front cross member along with the right side drivers tire took the brunt of the hit (bent a tie rod pretty good!) but the transmission oil pan was crushed pretty badly (sheared one bolt off in the block) and the actual tranxaxle case itself took a good whack too. Even though the pan took a beating, it didn't seem to be leaking from the pan, but rather from the joint between the MG2 and the end plate. There was a small portion of transaxle case that had been ground away but it seemed to be leaking from up higher as well. I figured that it was probably hit hard enough to break the seal of the FIPG causing the slow leak.

At this point I've worked on it for a couple days here and there and have the end case/plate of the transaxle off so that I can reseal it and hopefully get the leak to stop. I also got the sheared bolt out of the hole and the tie rod end off (fun when it's bent at the lock nut!). Going to go get some FIPG and try to replace the end soon but I'll be replacing the apparently infamous transmission oil pickup O ring and the oil pump seal as well (might as well do it while I'm down there).

We have recently also started to get the shaking steering rack that was under recall until just a couple months ago I'm wondering if anyone has a DIY on that as long as I'm down here too? I'm hoping that I don't have to drop the subframe to do so as that looks to be more of a project than I really want to get into right now...

I'll probably have some more questions as I go along trying to put all of this back together, but thought I should at least get signed up and a thread started

 

So my first real question(s) on this...

How much FIPG do I use? Spread it out with a finger or just leave a bead to be squished on it's own?

I assume that everyone will recommend actual Toyota FIPG as opposed to a third party? I'd rather do it right than worry about incompatible formulations of gasket.

I went to clean the very minimal FIPG off of the end plate (not pictured) and noted that where the actual housing impacted the curb (you can see the scuff mark on the picture, front and center on where the bottom of the joint turns upward) is actually slightly deformed.

The actual housing is deformed inward and the case cover has a matching deformation that fits in the deformation, so I'm still hoping that re-sealing it will solve my leak. It's a smooth deformation so I think I'll be OK still.

There are areas of the case where it looks like 100% had squished out the side and it was bare metal on metal, but I assume that they didn't skip areas at the factory.

As a TOTAL side note for anyone searching this in the future... I have only removed the drivers side engine mount. It does not appear that you'd have enough clearance to take the MG2 assembly out without further lowering of this side of the engine, which would mean taking the driveshaft out and probably the middle torsion bar engine mount.

 

Finally got parts in and have most everything buttoned back up. Had a buddy just help guide the plate back in past the frame with the FIPG applied. Could probably have done it without help, but he was available and only took about 15 minutes of his time. I did accidentally over torque one of the oil pump cover bolts so I need to replace that as well.

I measured the inverter coolant that drained out and with about 45 minutes of massaging and jiggling of hoses got 3/4 of the same volume back in late last night. Need to stop today and get transmission oil before I want to start it and bleed the rest of the system. Once that's done then I'll really know if the re-seal of the transmission end worked or not. Fingers crossed for sure!

Then it's just a tie rod before it's driveable again. After that I'll have to try to sort out the underside plastics as some of those were ripped off the bottom. Some might be salvageable, but others might have to be sourced still.

 

So far I've got about $80 in parts and about 10 hours into it, but that's partially because of things like removing sheared off bolts and rummaging around in my garage looking for a tool or whatever. I did ever so slightly bend the tip of my craftsman 14mm open end wrench when I didn't have a full grip on the rear lower engine mount bolt so I could maybe add that in, plus the beer budget is growing with each day as well

In all seriousness once I get the tie rod replaced & aligned and the fluids all put back I'm guessing that I'll be around $250 and 20 hours, but once again that's partially because of puttering and head scratching. I could probably do this again in well under half that time and a real mechanic that had a clue and parts readily available would be a day's work. That said I don't think a real mechanic would even take on the task, as if it does not reseal then they'd still have a lot of hours into the work but no running car. I'm doing this because it's better than sitting on the couch and if it works my wife gets to keep her car. If not, she really likes the 'cute' factor of the Gen1 but knows that they're going to get harder and harder to find and might have to replace it with something else.

If I could find a used transaxle I might try swapping it out, but that seems another level beyond where I'm already at.

 

Got the fluids in the car last night and it's running again! No leaks from the MG2 endplate so far (fingers still crossed) Rather happy about that!

Does the inverter coolant pump have different speeds?
Once it's bled properly will it pump coolant through the tank even when it's cold?

I do hear the pump running and when I released the bleeder valves with some clear tubing attached they filled up with fluid and it changed the sound of the pump for sure, but I'm not getting any flow through the little inverter tank. I've got the tie rod end off right now though so this is all just up on jackstands in my garage so it's not been driven, nor brought up to operating temperature yet.

 

it looks like it should be pumping into the resivoir from the front hose and flow down and out the back into the inverter? I'm not getting any flow at all from the looks of it.

No power button here, I'm assuming that's a Gen2 thing? I was thinking that driving it even a couple tenths of a mile around the block would possibly shake loose any additional air bubbles, but now I'm worried about the pump itself.

The new tie rod comes in today, so I'll be replacing that and then can at least put the car back on the ground and drive it around the block a couple times to see if I've still got some air or something locking the system up. Otherwise it looks like taking the headlight off is the easy way to get at the pump.

What would I look for on the inverter radiator? It's not leaking for sure.
Any specifics on blowing out the lines? I will say that the coolant that came out looked pretty clean, but I did replace it with new pink Toyota coolant.
I'm guessing that it's just the pump, but figure that I should get the info first!

 

I did see fluid come up out of both bleeders, and the pump even sounded different once I did that, which has me a bit worried about this blockage you mention. Didn't really get to look too much at this as the power was out all afternoon after some storms so I was working by flashlight...

I did also get a new inner tie rod assembly and the removal tool from my local auto parts store, went home and realized that the tool wouldn't fit over the part! The shaft of the tie rod is too large to fit in the pass through groove of the style of tool that they have. It would take about 30 seconds with my die grinder to widen the grove to fit, but before I purchase and modify the tool I think i'll try to see what the other brand of auto part store has to see if theirs would work. I don't have much choice to get it replaced where it sits as I did cut the bent part of the old rod off!

 

The Inner rod assembly. such as this
Http://www.carid.com/images/mevotech/suspension-parts/mev80304.jpg

The tool that i was able to borrow does not fit over the shaft near the ball. It's this one
http://www.mytoolstore.com/astro/7864.jpg

If I can find a place (see the URL for who I'm hoping can help!) that will let me borrow this one I think I can make it work
http://contentinfo.autozone.com/znetcs/product-info/en/US/grn/LIS46800/image/3/

 

It's possible to get a standard crescent wrench up in there, but try as I might I wasn't able to crack it free. I was able to find a tool that barely slid over the top and got it off this weekend! Now I'm waiting on a new Tie Rod. It completely shredded the little tabbed washer but the guy at the parts counter of my local 3rd party store told me that it's supposed to come with one, and he couldn't find a part number on it.

I still have to figure out if i've just not fully bled the air from the coolant system or if I have some other issue, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on this job. I've not got the car up to temp to really put any pressure on my FIPG, but I'm not seeing any seepage at this point!

 

FYI to any future people reading this. The $22 cheap tie rod did not come with the $1 tabbed washer. The $80 does as well as the $115 factory replacement. Toyota can ship in the part for a buck but I now have another few days to wait. Ugh.

 

IT LIVES! I finally got the washer shipped in from out of the country (how dumb is that!) and put the tie rod on last night. After dropping the car down off the jackstands it pulled another 2 0r 3 cups of coolant through the system and after driving around the block and bleeding the system a couple more times I got good flow through the coolant system and drove it to pick up the wife last night. No leaks! Woohoo!

It does need all the plastics replaced on the bottom still and an alignment still, but it's out of the garage and moving under its own power with no warning lights!