2001 shuttering to start, won't move in drive.

The fuel trim readings are indeed very high. While there might be possible scenarios where non-fuel-system problems could cause that, it is more likely they mean just what they seem to.

When you wrote above "anything with the fuel system is over my head", did you mean more (1) the workings are fuzzy for you and you're not sure how to figure out what's wrong, or (2) you're afraid you'd have trouble following step-by-steps to replace something?

I'm pretty sure you're within one parts replacement of having your car in good running condition. Replaced injectors or replaced igniters are likely to do it. If the one you try first doesn't, that'll leave the other, which very likely will.

-Chap

 

Chapmanf, the set of 4 ignitors are under $70 for the set if you buy non OEM part.

 

That's a good price - I admit I didn't shop very hard. I looked on Auto Parts Warehouse and found $54.95 for "Replacement" brand, $61 for Delphi, $71.54 for Beck Arnley - but those are 'sold individually' prices. Where did you find a set of 4 for that price, and have you had good experience with it?

If you exactly follow the shop manual steps it's a real PITA, because the shop manual has you take the valve cover off(!). It's because the valve cover has this one goofy hook in the corner that sticks over the fuel rail. Both astrolink and I found there is enough freedom of movement in the fuel rail, once the bolts are out, to replace the injectors without having to fuss with the valve cover.

I still found it a semi-PITA because of the three bolts holding the fuel rail, two are right in front under your nose but the third is way back around the side of the engine hidden under the PCV fittings. The solution astrolink found to that problem was if you don't know the third bolt's there, it doesn't slow you down, and apparently the fuel pipe is bendy enough for that to work. That definitely reduces the PITA-ness.

I would definitely call it convenient to have compressed air and a blow nozzle (or, failing that, even one of those cans of blow you can buy to clean keyboards) to chase out the road grot that collects around the injector holes, before pulling any injectors out, so none of the grot falls in.

-Chap

 

Sad to say, P0420 is a catalytic converter code. I had my fingers crossed hoping that wouldn't happen.

There's still a chance the code is only thrown because of exhaust gas makeup confusing the sensor, so it still seems most important to get the misfiring fixed posthaste ... then clear all the codes and with luck the P0420 doesn't come back.

-Chap

 

"Conversation" me if you'd like this set of restored and tested injectors, and I'll get them in transit early tomorrow.

If so, I'd also be interested in doing the same thing as with astrolink: if you'll be willing to mail your old ones off to Rich Jensen, I'll pick up the tab to have them fully tested and restored, then when he ships to me I'll post the before/after test report here, and we'll add to PriusChat's total knowledge of exactly how they test out given the symptoms and readings you've been having.

The end result (and cost) would be the equivalent of you just sending your set to Rich for restoration, only without having to wait for his turnaround time to get your original set back. (Of course it will also put me immediately back in the situation of sitting on a spare set of injectors, but hey, it's all in the name of science and eventually the next person will need 'em....)

-Chap

 

Can I somehow contribute a couple of bucks to this knowledge base?

 

I'm not aware of any posts that illustrate how to replace the fuel injectors.

techinfo.toyota.com is a subscription website where you can obtain factory repair manual info including the procedure for removing fuel injectors. As previously mentioned, try to remove the fuel rail without first removing the valve cover because the latter activity will add a substantial amount of time and effort to the job.

Note that one test is to measure the resistance across each injector. If you should find an injector with resistance outside the spec, that makes it easier for you to decide to replace it.

You need to be very careful to replace the injector O-rings because the seals to the fuel rail and to the intake manifold must be perfect. If the fuel rail seals are not perfect then fuel will spray everywhere. If the intake manifold seals are not perfect then unmetered air will enter the system which will cause a lean air/fuel ratio and misfiring.

 

I see USPS eventually delivered the goods ... 20½ hours later than promised ... sorry about that.

Curious about the rain effect ... also curious about the LF1 swinging not only to very high values but also to very low (negative) ones, where I would expect more one or the other ....

Just for grins, have you double-checked the XGAUGE entry that you made for LF1 on the scangauge? Just in case there could be a typo, especially in the MTH portion?

For depressurizing the fuel rail, what I did on mine (the first time) was just start the engine up, then pull the CIR OPN relay. It works, but the engine dies such a long, clattering, operatic death that it made me wonder about a better way. If I had to do it again, I'd just leave the car off and use a couple wires and a 9 volt battery to open one of the injectors, so the fuel pressure is just neatly relieved into the intake port and you're done. If you put the tip of a screwdriver on the injector and lean your ear on the other end, you can definitely hear the squirt when the injector opens if there is pressure, or the click with no squirt if there isn't. (The system doesn't hold pressure indefinitely, so it shouldn't astound you if you get click-no-squirt even on the first try, as it's probably been a while since the engine was on when you get to that point.) This way works just as well to confirm there's no pressure even if you aren't able to start the engine.

I checked with Rich (the injector wizard) who didn't shoot any holes in the idea. It is his suggestion to use a 9 volt battery, instead of full 12 volts, for hand-triggering injectors ... it's enough to work, and won't heat them up as much (given they are built to run on very short pulses measured in milliseconds.)

If you are able to start the car, I'd also suggest starting it before you begin work, and doing a force-charge to get the HV battery up to 80% state-of-charge or so (you can add a SoC XGAUGE to the scangauge if you haven't already). My engine went into the strange startless-start syndrome other people have sometimes reported (it was the first time for me) and I spent numerous start attempts (watching the SoC get lower and lower ). Of course that was partly because I was trying to figure out what the startless-start syndrome is really about, instead of just resetting everything right away and being done with it.

If you're willing to package up the old injectors and send them to Rich for testing, here are his packing guidelines. I can create a work order and send you a ref number that should be written down and included in the box.

I hope the replacement goes well, maybe solves the problem, even.

-Chap

 

Ohh, crud. Man, I'm sorry. So we can gain by your experience, which one gave you that much trouble? Would that have been the one in position 4 where the work access is so tight?

Shoot, there's probably still not much wrong with the car, but without extra O rings and maybe one more injector to work with (is it just one that you think you might have bent?) that is kind of a work stopper.

If you have a place to tow it to (and not totally give up yet), you've sort of already got 4 spare injectors - the old ones you could still send to Rich. He'll test them before servicing, and those test results will tell us a lot about how much of a part of the problem they were. Then you could have him send all 4 back to you (or if you don't want all 4, I'll cover the ones you don't want) and that would give you up to seven good injectors to work with until you get 4 successfully installed. Since he has ready access to the right O rings, you might be able to talk him out of a few extras also. Only downside is that now his turnaround time comes into the picture, but if you're going out of town for a bit, they'd probably be back before you are.

I hate seeing a project end in discouragement. I bet you'll get the hang of putting those in. Gently is the watchword ... gently ....

-Chap

 

I was thinking more about this over dinner and I have an idea what might have happened. I bet you had some trouble telling whether the injectors were fully seated before you tightened the fuel rail down. There's a certain touch that goes with putting together anything that's assembled with O rings, which isn't necessarily natural if you don't often. There's resistance but greater force doesn't help, the only things that help are the lube on the O ring and a patient steady force along with some twisting and wiggling. You can't miss when it eventually goes in, and from that point it's pretty easy to work it the rest of the way to fully seated. But if you haven't already done that by hand before going to bolt the rail back down, the force of tightening the bolts will not do it for you, but will only tear O rings and/or squash injectors.

(It occurs to me there's one more reason it's a shame auto mechanic-ing is such a gender-skewed business - I bet there aren't many women mechanics who don't have very strong intuitions about how this should or should not be done.)

A concern this gives me is that maybe more than one of the injectors got exposed to this kind of force. Even without looking visibly squashed like your picture, an injector even imperceptibly bent might bind internally or just not work right. The last thing we'd want is to reassemble with questionably-functional injectors, because if that failed to solve the problem it would also fail to tell us anything, and that's pure frustration.

The best injector set you've got now is probably your originals if you get them restored - I assume they haven't been exposed to any excess installation force since all you've done was take them out. Maybe it makes sense to send the whole pile to Rich (except for the one that's visibly squashed) - I think he charges only $7.90 or so to test an injector that doesn't need full servicing, and that would be a way to be sure which of the ones you tried installing just now are still ok.

-Chap

 

I guess if the bottom seals want to drop off and stay in the holes on the cylinder head, there's no harm in letting them - the way the holes are shaped they can't fall in or anything, and you can just lower the injectors down into them....

-Chap

 

-Chap[/QUOTE]
Hi CClay, I congratulate you on your patience! You have a great little car with a stinking little hidden problem.
If you lived closer I would come overwith my Gen 1 and swap parts till it runs right. Sometimes it's the simplest damned things, and I bet it will be on yours....
I have had spark plugs with INVISIBLE traces of neverseez on the porcelain from mechanic's fingers that fired down the outside of the porcelain. And this corrupted the inside of the plug wire terminals, too. This is cleanable with ether, q tips, and patience. The rust stains on your plugs are also conductive...I wonder if a fresh set of plugs...you're waaay overdue for serious consideration of plugs as the culprit. What they look like visually can be misleading, what we need to know is are they firing down the inside or outside porcelain instead of at the tip...I take mine to the airport and pressure test them.
injector seal test, you can spray a puff of ether at base of injector. rpm rise = leak. No rise seal is ok.
You may also have an air leak upstream of the cat, on the exhaust pipe or intake side, confusing the 02 sensors. an exhaust manifold gasket or donut will do this.
You may be overdue for fuel pressure test, as Chap said. Harbor Freight has a tester cheap and I like to drive the car with the gauge sitting by the wipers so I read it thru the windshield. I bought a very nice Citroen cheap off Ebay which the owner could not fix, it was an intermittent air leak upstream of the fuel pump on an old soft hose.
Is your fuel tank good and full,
and maybe even change that fuel out...it might not be the car's fault at all!

 

Hi CClay, I congratulate you on your patience! You have a great little car with a stinking little hidden problem.
If you lived closer I would come overwith my Gen 1 and swap parts till it runs right. Sometimes it's the simplest damned things, and I bet it will be on yours....
I have had spark plugs with INVISIBLE traces of neverseez on the porcelain from mechanic's fingers that fired down the outside of the porcelain. And this corrupted the inside of the plug wire terminals, too. This is cleanable with ether, q tips, and patience. The rust stains on your plugs are also conductive...I wonder if a fresh set of plugs...you're waaay overdue for serious consideration of plugs as the culprit. What they look like visually can be misleading, what we need to know is are they firing down the inside or outside porcelain instead of at the tip...I take mine to the airport and pressure test them.
injector seal test, you can spray a puff of ether at base of injector. rpm rise = leak. No rise seal is ok.
You may also have an air leak upstream of the cat, on the exhaust pipe or intake side, confusing the 02 sensors. an exhaust manifold gasket or donut will do this.
You may be overdue for fuel pressure test, as Chap said. Harbor Freight has a tester cheap and I like to drive the car with the gauge sitting by the wipers so I read it thru the windshield. I bought a very nice Citroen cheap off Ebay which the owner could not fix, it was an intermittent air leak upstream of the fuel pump on an old soft hose.
Is your fuel tank good and full,
and maybe even change that fuel out...it might not be the car's fault at all![/QUOTE]

...Or exhaust system (cat, cat diverter) restriction causing low vacuum and strange MAP signals. Easy to teat with a vac gauge

 

Well, the stinking big unhidden problem right now is the old injectors are out and no injectors are successfully in yet, which'll amount to a temporary delay in testing other stuff.

This didn't register with me last night. When you restarted? I vote for doing a non-running leak test first before putting everything else back together, as I showed in the video....

-Chap