My sister has a (I believe) 2012, Prius Plug-In with the 2ZR-FXE engine. It had apparently had a head put on it by the used auto dealer she bought it from... Well, they didn't do it right, from what I understand, and there's a nice solid hole punched in the block. Never seized, but definitely doesn't kick in and stay running. So, I am tasked with putting an engine in this thing. Does anyone have any sort of guide or walkthrough for this? I'm pretty scared, I think the newest thing I've ever put an engine in is a 2006 Nissan. Even any tips or suggestions, anything really, would be appreciated. I unfortunately AM going to do this/have to do this (she can barely afford the used engine), there is no 'take it to the dealer' or 'no bro' about it so those won't exactly be helpful... But if you're the sort of person that must anyways, I guess have at it. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. I just want to get as much information as possible before undergoing this task, as it is not my vehicle or my money I'm playing with and I only want to help.
Welcome to Prius Chat ! There have been 3 members recently that have undergone engine removals: @danlatu : Blown Head gasket rebuild....@297k @Aaron Vitolins : Cylinder misfire. Help! @Wrekless : Is my engine toast? Happy reading . Keep us posted with your questions .
Remember , the Plugin Prius is similar to the Gen 3 but has some differences. I suspect most of the changes involve software and a larger traction battery. Were you able to get the engine from another plugin?
danlatu is a wealth of knowledge on this and has good practices on how to do stuff. I would read his whole thread and note the good stuff. He was invaluable in doing mine. Also make sure you get that 2010 prius shop manual that has links floating around the forum, maybe someone can point you to it if you don't have it already. It is a pain to find stuff in but does have the diagrams, specs, and torques listed. You have to take a lot of parts off and apart to do this. It is a good time to clean out EGR system, decide what you want to do about PCV, change coolants and trans fluid, clean injectors, etc. I broke each section down into slices that made sense to me, put the fasteners in labeled tupperware from the dollar store, and put the parts for that slice in its own space in the garage, and took lots of pictures to double check where all the hoses and wiring goes. Good luck. Mine went smooth but the ECU isn't happy. Engine is running great now though.
The exploded engine had about 175k I do believe. It was definitely up there in mileage. I'm very glad to hear there is a shop manual -- I will absolutely try to dig it up, and if that fails I'll bother you about it again. I simply purchased a 2ZR engine, didn't think that the engine itself would affect the ECU. I'm hoping to video record the whole process, I'm too shy to post the video or I would, but I mostly want to do it in case I 'forget' to notice something I should have -- hopefully the lens will notice what I might not.
If you ever start to feel like your time is worth money and $15 might be a bargain compared to your effort to dig it up, you can always go straight to techinfo.toyota.com and find all the shop manuals, wiring diagrams, service bulletins, quick technical guides, and Toyota technician online coursebooks.... Usually if you find one you can dig up, it'll be some print-to-pdf-file copy where none of the hyperlinks work, which is often what people are talking about when they say the manual is hard to look stuff up in. -Chap
I have 'other means' about obtaining repair info, if I'm going that route (and there's a Chilton anything available) -- note that the Michigan e-Library (mel, it's an org address) has all Chilton manuals available in their "databases" section. You used to be able to access them freely, then you needed a Michigan drivers' ID, then you needed a VALID Michigan drivers' ID (before any numbers that met the format worked), now you need to access it from an IP that geolocates within Michigan. But, that's simple with just a bit of proxy work Great information for any of you that do a lot of car nonsense. Dig yourself up a MI proxy server, get free manuals for most anything. I believe you deserve access to the information to repair your sh--t. Might not be a popular belief, but I feel repair should be about the labor and skill involved in doing it, not limited because companies keep information from you (and this is coming from a electronics tech -- I believe everyone should have access to the info I do and I do my best to make it so).
All of that is why Toyota makes all that information available for cheap. It might not have happened without persistent and pragmatic right-to-repair advocacy, which other people have been doing and continue to do instead of pretending it isn't valuable because it isn't absolutely free. It's more or less in line with the Massachusetts right-to-repair framework that the automakers agreed a few years ago to apply nationwide, and Toyota already had it in place many years earlier. I wouldn't mind if it were free, either, but what's your plan for paying the technical writing, editing, illustration, and translation team? Those people don't come cheap. Clearly, you could roll it in to the price of every car, but then there are lots of drivers out there who never do wrench their own stuff. It seems to me that, in areas where manufacturers have shown willingness to move in the direction of right-to-repair advocates, it is more productive to recognize them for that than to turn around and denounce it. There are still areas where right-to-repair advocates may need to stay focused, such as whether manufacturers will use hacking fears to push for abandonment of standard OBD protocols, covered by right-to-repair law, for others that aren't. I did all the wrenching on my first car using nothing but Clymer and Chilton books. When I bought my second car, I figured as an experiment I'd buy the FSM (which, back then, required an outlay over $200 to get a stack of dead trees) just to see if it was more helpful. After seeing how much of my time I had previously been wasting to solve problems I only had because of incomplete, or sometimes plain wrong, manuals, I pretty much stopped thinking of those 3rd party efforts as realistic alternatives to the factory docs. And that was before anything like techinfo, where you can drop one $10 and one $5 and have access to not only all the repair manuals, wiring diagrams, service bulletins, and quick technical guides for your own car (and all of your friends'), but also complete coursebooks used in Toyota technician training. That was when it took forever to unfold the wiring diagram on a big table and follow circuits around with your finger, instead of pointing and clicking and having the whole circuit highlight and generate connection diagrams and part numbers for you. I think it would be a shame for right-to-repair advocacy to tie itself up in opposing good progress because it falls short of a particular idea of perfection. -Chap
Information should be available and is available for a fee. That does not mean the information should be available at no charge, though.
