2010 Prius Head Gasket Repair, Timing Fix, & EGR Cleaning

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by UggaDugga, Jul 14, 2023.

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  1. UggaDugga

    UggaDugga Junior Member

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    Overview:
    Hi all, first time posting anything big here. I recently replaced the head gasket on my prius (2010, 317k miles/204k miles on the engine due to a swap before I owned it), replaced my timing chains/sprockets, and cleaned out the EGR cooler/valve and intake manifold. The help from other posts on here was invaluable, so I wanted to share my experience too in the hopes that it helps others in the future. Apologies in advance for the length of the post.

    Got the dreaded knocking on the car over the summer and it threw codes P0300, P0301, and P0302 for cylinder misfires. I kept driving it for a while as it was our only car but eventually it just got too constant so we bought a new one (2008 – before they screwed up the engines lol). Toyota dealership in the area (Madison, WI) estimated $4500-$5000 to fix it, but after looking around online at kits and at the info here, I figured it was worth a shot for $300-$400 in parts/tools to fix it myself. My father in law works on a lot of old jeeps in their garage, and he was kind enough to let me use the garage space and tools for the job. I replaced the head gasket, thought I’d cleaned out my EGR cooler sufficiently, and reassembled everything. Afterwards I got a timing code that popped up every-other time I turned the car on (though the engine sounded fine to our ears), so I took it back apart and replaced my timing chain, tensioner, & sprockets (not included in my cost summary below) and the issue was resolved. Then a friend with a 2012 prius at 180k miles asked about maintenance to prevent head gasket issues so I helped them out with cleaning their EGR, and it was so clogged we just bought a new one to get their car back in service quickly, and I saw what an EGR cooler really should look like inside. So then I cleaned their old one out, took my car back apart again and put the cleaned cooler in, and cleaned out my original one to have handy as a spare for the future. 150 miles on it since then and no more issues so far!

    Reference Info:
    Toyota’s website was extremely helpful in identifying the part numbers of the studs and bolts I needed to replace (Exhaust Gas Recirculation (Egr) Valve Gasket | Part #2562737010 | Toyota Auto Parts)

    PriusChat links:
    General - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2017/10/133841_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Engine_Removal_and_Install.pdf
    General - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203171_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Head.pdf
    Water Pump - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2020/12/198049_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_water_pump_replacement_-_engine.pdf
    Timing Chain Tensioner - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203193_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Timing_Chain_Tensioner_install.pdf
    Timing Cover Install - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203192_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Timing_Chain_Cover_Install.pdf
    Engine Head Removal/Installation - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203170_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Head_Removal.pdf & https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2020/03/184233_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Head_Removal.pdf
    Cylinder Head Cover - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203169_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_cylinder_head_cover.pdf
    Camshaft & Head Bolt Inspection - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203168_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Head_bolt_check.pdf
    Cam, Head Bolt, & Exhaust Inspection - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2022/08/225618_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Head_bolt_check_02.pdf
    Valve Train Assembly - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203167_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Head_-_Inspection_and_Repair.pdf
    Head Warpage Inspection - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2021/03/203166_2010_Toyota_Prius_Repair_Manual_-_Cylinder_Block_Warpage_Check.pdf
    Oil Consumption repair procedure - https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2020/12/198972_T-SB-0169-16_oil_consumption_fix.pdf
    EGR Cleaning Threads - Bad Flywheel | PriusChat & Cleaning the EGR cooler. Or Not! | Page 3 | PriusChat

    Videos:
    Gasket Masters -

    By far the best rundown on replacing a head gasket. They even were able to offer some advice when I called with a few questions before I dug too far into my engine compartment​
    Also referenced this one for other views/steps -

    Disconnecting the main batteries -

    Inspecting your pistons if you ran for a while with the knock -


    Steps w/ Timestamps in GasketMasters video (when applicable)*
    *disconnecting the batteries may not be actually necessary, but it made me feel better
    (If anyone wants to throw the above info into a table in here that would be great. for my first big post I didn't care to learn the code that seemed to be required for tables)

    parts/tools & cost:
    Craftsman 20-100 ft-lb torque wrench - $58.00 from lowes
    10mm double hex socket drive - $17.10 from amazon (CTA Tools 9292 Toyota Head Bolt Wrench)
    external torx socket & bit set - $16.99 from advanced auto (P/N 16160)
    Full gasket kit - $207.10 from toyotapartsdeal.com with shipping (P/N 0411-37316)
    Spark plugs (4) - $37.68 from toyotapartsdeal.com
    FIPG - $53.82 from McGeorge Toyota with shipping (P/N 00295-00103)
    broken plastic clips - $7.68 from advanced auto
    scotchbrite white pads (2) - $3.57 from advanced auto (P/N 07445)
    replacement hardware (snapped several bolts during disassembly & had to replace several studs with snapped torx heads/frozen nuts) - $28.65 from Ace, $3.15 from McGeorge Toyota, & $5.48 from toyotapartsdeal.com
    oil & filter - $34.81 from advanced auto
    oxiclean - $12 from walmart
    replacement studs: $3.74 pickup from local toyota dealership
    wire handle from chinese takeout basket – priceless ;)
    Total: $490*
    *cost of blood, sweat, and curse-words not included


    Engine Teardown/Rebuild:
    There’s really not much I can add here that wasn’t in the gasketmaster’s video. Though I’ll share a few lessons learned from my mistakes. :)
    If you’re working with a car that has its fair share of corrosion and have the car/garage space to spare for a week, I recommend doing the full teardown before ordering your parts. You’ll probably snap a few stuck bolts that you can tack onto your gasket kit/fipG order and save on shipping. Although if there are any other small replacements needed – find the part number on toyota’s website (or mcgeorge/hesser toyota or toyotaparts deal) and then contact your nearest toyota dealership’s parts department for that p/n, saved me $15 on shipping for $3 of parts.
    I did have some extra fun with my timing cover – I got halfway through drilling out one of the snapped bolts (from the water pump) when I decided to try an easy-out. And promptly snapped it off inside the bolt. After unsuccessfully attempting to drill through that hardened tool steel I tried a hammer to tap it back out (supported to prevent denting the sealing surface). And I promptly snapped the flange with the bolt off LOL. Thankfully I knew a welder in the area who was willing to weld it back on for $20 once I got the easy-out and bolt out – since it’s not a surface the gasket actually seats on I figured it should be fine (and so far, no issues). Moral of the story – be gentle on the timing cover, it’s really a pretty weak aluminum piece.
    Instead of sending my engine head/block out for machining I checked it with a machinist’s square borrowed from a coworker and a 1.5 thousandth feeler gauge and everything seemed good. Used some white scotchbrite pads (the finest abrasive type) and a flat razor (very carefully, I did lightly scratch a few of the outer surfaces) for cleaning off carbon deposits and then braklean for followup. If you use scotchbrite like I did be careful where you use it or the abrasive particles can fall into cavities and be difficult to remove.
    I know some advocated for replacing the head bolts, I inspected mine and saw no thread damage and their length measured within the tolerances listed in one of those reference links above, so I just reused them. Dropped one of the exhaust manifold studs while reconnecting that and had to drop the oil pan and use a boroscope to find it and fish it out – definitely worth plugging all those channels with shop towel while you’re working over the engine! Getting that took as long as the entire teardown process.
    While I had it apart, I spayed a bunch of braklean into the egr cooler and could see some light through it, and failing to find a good picture of a clean one online, I wasn’t certain how clear it should be and reinstalled it (big mistake! You should be able to see clear through all the channels in that thing). I did get a ton of crud out of the air intake manifold EGR passage with a long pointed steel rod. Also had to clean out the main passage of the air intake for cylinder 1 and the intake portion on the head (carefully to prevent damaging the fuel injector) since there was some sludge buildup from the knocking/misfiring.
    If it’s your first time dealing with toyota’s torx studs, make sure you loosen the nut before turning out the stud – the torx head will snap quite easily. I ended up removing the EGR with the engine head due to not being able to remove these studs after breaking one,and finding 2 others pre-broken by previous mechanics. I put it back in that way too and it was a major PITA. It’s worth replacing those studs. Though the second time I pulled the EGR assembly out I skipped putting that smaller bottom stud/nut back in – absolutely not worth the time and frustration.
    After getting it all back together, I did get a P0139 code about a rear bank O2 sensor issue, but I cleared it figuring it was residual from the head gasket failure & any remaining contaminants from my repair job and had no more issues with it afterwards.

    Timing Issue
    P0016 – crankshaft position
    My father in law did most of the work on this part as a “birthday present” so this’ll be a pretty brief write-up. Since the engine sounded good to our ears, we first suspected the sensors. He checked the camshaft position sensors with a multimeter and everything seemed to be reading right, so we followed the same teardown steps to get the timing cover back off. We replaced the timing chains, tensioner, guides, and the upper 2 and lower sprockets. Be careful to ensure you’re getting the right variable timing sprocket for your engine if you need to fix your timing.
    First kit (
    ) came with the wrong variable timing sprocket up top for the 2ZR engine so we had to return it and get a different kit (
    ) and sprocket (
    ). There was no measurable difference in the timing chain lengths, no measurable difference in timing chain tensioner height/force, no measurable difference in any of the sprockets, gears, or guides, but the error code is gone in any case so I guess something wasn’t right anyways.
    Having a long rod to drop in through the cylinder 1 spark plug hole to help determine top dead center is a must.

    EGR Cleaning
    As mentioned above – the EGR passage in the air intake on my prius had a lot of carbon deposits in it – definitely worth removing to clean it out. Although on the friend’s car it wasn’t too bad – the cooler had caught most of the buildup instead (could hardly get water to drain through it).
    My first attempt was just soaking it in a bucket of carb cleaner my father in law had been using on his jeeps. Left it for a week and it didn’t really seem to have had much effect. I took a power washer to it (and thankfully had the common sense to put on safety glasses first) and after some good splashback managed to blast out about 10 of the central channels. Left it to soak for another few weeks, did some reading online and I was looking at buying an ultrasonic cleaner to test out on it when I found an old one I could borrow from one of my coworkers (picture included). I saw Mendel mention on another thread that hot water with oxiclean worked well for him, so I picked some up and used the cleaner’s heating function to get it up to 80C, and ran it for a few hours. Afterwards I was able to flush out a fair amount of additional passages using just faucet water, but there were still about 30% of them that refused to come clear. Ran it for a few more hours with not a ton more luck, maybe got that down to 20%. Looked around for metal rods to run through the tough channels but everything I checked was just a bit too large. Eventually I straightened the metal handle off of a chinese takeout container and it fit perfectly without bending the tabs down in the channels. Rammed it through the remaining problem channels, ran it through the ultrasonic cleaner once more, and it came out clean – could see light down every single passageway (pictures included – EGR Cooler 1). The second cooler I remembered to take before pictures of, ran it for a few hours in the cleaner with the oxiclean solution, rammed the metal wire down every channel until it could go clearly through, ran it in the cleaner for a few hours (flipping it once to ensure no air bubbles prevented cleaning of one side of it) and flushed it out in the sink – light showing down every channel again. Running the wire down each channel again and having it come back out clean was a good indicator as well (kind of sticking a toothpick in a cake). If it wasn’t for the slight bit of corrosion on some of the external surfaces it would be difficult to tell from the brand new one my friend had purchased for his prius.
    I probably attached too many pictures of the cleaned EGRs, but since I originally stuck mine back in in the condition shown in the EGR2Start pictures, hopefully I help someone else realize you shoud be able to see straight through every channel… Plus I’m very pleased with the results so I tried showing every angle my phone camera could capture the flashlight shining through ;)
    Moral of the story – either the ultrasonic cleaner or the oxiclean mixture worked quite well, but a small stiff wire was still extremely helpful to blast through a few tough spots and let the cleaner finish its work. You should be able to see light through every passage of your cooler, even if it’s just dimly through some of those edge ones.

    My second time taking the egr cooler off I tried it without draining all the coolant from the system. Even with some hose clamps it still spilled a fair bit of coolant out, probably half a quart. Caught it with a pan under the vehicle, strained it from debris, and put it back in, but next time I’ll probably just drain it all first and save myself the spillage all over the transmission and other components down there.


     
    #1 UggaDugga, Jul 14, 2023
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 21, 2023
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  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    I usually send the EGR coolers I pulled to the machine shop and have them tanked they come back like brand new sometimes I'll send a couple of them over there I keep a few of them here on the shelf so they can be swapped out very quickly if need be but actually seems to take a long time for them to clog like right around when the engine fails or starts to rattle and that's it 200k most of the time well past I think Toyotas built in life expectancy I would think but you never know these days. So now I just check them like every 65,000 mi and rather than checking me just on both them bolt on the clean one throw the dirty one in the bin and then take two or three of them at a time over to the shop and they clean them in the tank hot tank and whatever you call it safety clean the real stuff you put your hands in it'll lead them off It was like $25 a cooler to have them cleaned out like that I figure it's money well spent than me sitting around with a jewelry cleaner and some solution that's green and made for homeowners
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Jul 14, 2023
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  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    Wow! Great job and write up, thank you!
     
    #3 bisco, Jul 14, 2023
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  4. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Toyota Repair Manual specs 10 mm Double Hex. @ChapmanF will hopefully be along with my pic’s (he’s more organized lol). Thanks in advance.
     
    #4 Mendel Leisk, Jul 14, 2023
  5. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Uses Google.
     
    #5 ChapmanF, Jul 14, 2023
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  6. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    #6 Mendel Leisk, Jul 14, 2023
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  7. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    My Kobalt spline drive sockets broke em loose no problem. Seemed on there pretty tight to me so I just used them I just blasted this motor apart like last week
     
    #7 Tombukt2, Jul 17, 2023
  8. UggaDugga

    UggaDugga Junior Member

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    Whoops! My mistake.
    Thanks for pointing that out. Fortunately it seems to have worked fine, but I could see that being a potential source of damage to a bolt head. wish I could still edit my original post to make sure no one else uses my bad info. :notworthy:
     
    #8 UggaDugga, Jul 17, 2023
  9. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    A lot have used triple square. It’s got the same number of corners, the points poke out a hair further, and are 90 degree, not sixty. It’s not optimum though. I reported your post above, moderator may be revise initial post. :)

    BTW, I’ve never done any thing as involved as a head gasket, just a sideline spectator. :unsure:
     
    #9 Mendel Leisk, Jul 17, 2023
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  10. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    After it's too late for the Edit button, it's still possible to Report your own post, and ask the moderator to correct something. Not something to do often and make work for the mod, but I have done it a few times if I notice I got something wrong in a post that later searchers might land on.
     
    #10 ChapmanF, Jul 17, 2023
  11. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    What's the cost and part number and I can replace that line in the OP for you.
     
    #11 Tideland Prius, Jul 17, 2023
  12. UggaDugga

    UggaDugga Junior Member

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    That would be excellent! It looks like CTA tools P/N 9292 is the right tool, cheapest I'm finding it is after shipping is $17.10 on amazon.

    should be replaced with:
    10mm double hex socket drive - $17.10 from amazon (CTA Tools 9292 Toyota Head Bolt Wrench)

    and the total cost below it would go up by $3 (y)
     
    #12 UggaDugga, Jul 21, 2023
  13. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Done. And changed the total from $487 to $490.
     
    #13 Tideland Prius, Jul 21, 2023
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  14. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Maybe you watched the @NutzAboutBolts video. While invaluable, their hose clamping of the EGR is largely futile. The coolant hoses mostly come to the cooler from below. So, you clamp the hoses, pull them off, and all the coolant above, in the cooler, pours out.

    I would recommend to either do the EGR system cleaning in conjunction with a coolant change, or simply drain a couple of quarts from the radiator, into a clean container. This will leave the EGR components high-and-dry. Pour that back into the reservoir when done. More info in second link in my signature (on a phone turn it landscape to see signature).

    Also, there is no need to pull the coolant hoses off the throttle body; they have enough freeplay you can removed it and tie it something (say inverter cables), get the intake manifold removed, and/or clean the throttle body.
     
    #14 Mendel Leisk, Jul 21, 2023
  15. UggaDugga

    UggaDugga Junior Member

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    Yeah I know I watched theirs at some point. What you mention is what I plan to try next time around in about 50k miles.
     
    #15 UggaDugga, Jul 21, 2023
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