Is my engine toast?

Now for a game of name that part. I was walking by the prius and heard something drop. It landed dead center under the engine. Its maybe 1" diameter and 2" long. Looks like a plastic spacer or bushing, but feels like cheap plastic. Possibly not from the prius but I've never seen it before. And is is symmetrical, it has the same male nipple on the other end. Any thoughts?

 

I apologize for the potato pictures. It was hot and humid out, and I was solo. I was supposed to video taking the engine out.

That said, I had some issue getting the engine mount on the left side off. Some of those bolts are just hard to reach. I also had to persuade the engine to let go of the transaxle. Once those two hurdles were overcome, I had twice the room I needed to get the engine out. I probably could have left a lot of stuff connected.

 

the manifold was disconnected from the engine. I took it off the exhaust though because i'm putting the newer lower mileage one that came with the engine back in.

I was cleaning the EGR valve and learned most people don't take the actual actuator apart. It has a magnet screw and spring in side. I've seen others apart but no specs on how far in it should be to put it back together. Might have to adjust it some after everything is back together.

I cleaned the new egr cooler and pipe. I could see light through it when I started, but still had a ton of build-up come out of it. I is really clea now though.

Hopefully today I can start working on moving the flywheel over. The procedure is SST after SST, but it looks pretty doable without the special tools.

 

I need to play some catch up today and tomorrow. Last weekend I had to move the flywheel over. So the manual states you need all sorts of special tools. The reason for this is you are trying to remove a wheel that wants to spin the more torque you apply. There is an outer cover that just has some bolts around the edge. I put a bar between the engine and flywheel to keep it from spinning. Those removed fairly easily.

After that there are 8 bolts on the flywheel, tightly packed, and very tight. It was a balancing act of keeping the bar between the engine and flywheel to keep it from turning. But you don't want to apply too much pressure there and warp or bend something. The manual calls for locking down the pulley on the front of the engine. I had to put enough pressure on the bolts the whole engine was lifting off the ground. I put a 12 year old on top of the engine to solve that problem.

Then I had to put it on the 'new' engine. The problem is the engine attaches to the stand on the side the flywheel is on. So I put the engine back on the hoist. I cleaned the bolts and boltholes out with a brass brush. They were lock-tited and needed to be redone. So I put locktite on and put the 8 bolts in.

The manual calls for 36?ish lb-ft of pressure on each one, done in a specific order. That was easy. Then you mark a line on each bolt and turn it another 90 degrees. I'm not sure how many hundreds of lbs of force that took, but I am fairly strong and I was swinging the crane and hanging engine all over the place. Even with a 12yo hanging on it. Some might only be 85 degrees turned, but I don't think its going anywhere. With the flywheel on, I could barely get it back on the engine stand. I think my standoffs are too short.

Now I swear I had taken a bunch of pictures of this, but can't find any. I'm sorry. Here is one all done, which does nobody any good.

 

I have a nice torque wrench but it only goes up to 200 ft lbs. The 90 degree turns were specified by the manual. I had to go more than the 200 ft lb click on my wrench and switch to the breaker bar.

 

Earlier this week I got some goodies. The amazon guy brought me plugs and a can:



I also stopped by the stealership for some fluids and such. I got the coolant (which is apparently liquid gold based on the price), ATF fluid, new aluminum crush rings, and a new PCV valve since it was only $6. The PCV also came pre-doped. Which is nice but means I had a lot of gunk to clear out of the threads form the old one.

 

I decided that it would probably be easier to refill the transaxle with the engine out.



Changing out the transaxle fluid the easy way!!!



Of course me being in the engine bay is a little bit of Fat Man in Little Coat from Tommy Boy. So I got the the point that, yep, it is obviously full:



I did let it drain for awhile to make sure it leveled back out. I usually use a bottle extender hose that has adapters for wide mouth and narrow mouth automotive fluids, but leave it to toyota to use a non-standard size. Glad I did this while the engine was out and the funnel fit.

 

The manual didn't specify new bolts for the flywheel. They were pretty stout little bolts. That being said it will be interesting to see if this thing works or explodes when I get it all put back together.