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Blown Head Gasket and Burning Oil at 168,000

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Nick D, Aug 11, 2024.

  1. Nick D

    Nick D New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2024
    1
    0
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    Location:
    California
    Vehicle:
    2014 Prius
    Model:
    Two
    Hello,

    I definitely had a blown gasket in my 2014 Prius (manufactured 01/2014) after 168,000 miles. I had the notorious CLACK CLACK CLACK at startup. It only did it for about 30 seconds and would go away when accelerating. I’ve already thoroughly cleaned the EGR system and replaced the PCV valve and the symptoms still persisted. I did have a check engine light which was P0301. Misfire - cylinder 1. I took the number one spark plug out and it smelled of coolant. I flashed a flash light down the spark plug hole and could see that the top of the cylinder head was wet so I was confident that it was a blown head gasket. I brought the cylinder head to a machine shop and had it resurfaced. I will be lapping the valves myself. I’ve taken photos of the cylinder walls for your opinions. I can’t feel any ridges or grooves anywhere on the cylinder walls. I can also still see the cross hatching. I’ve already got the engine completely torn down and the short block is on engine stand right now. I was reading that there is a microfilm on the cylinder walls so if I rehome, it’s been reported that I could burn oil because the microfilm is missing? Should I skip honing and just clean up carbon from piston heads and install new rings? I did see carbon build up on the oil consumption rings. Let me know if you have any other questions.
     

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    #1 Nick D, Aug 11, 2024
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2020
    10,369
    1,791
    0
    Location:
    Durham NC
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    You can gently hone the boars with a fine ball hone not the three stone type you use on your lawn mower or something like that or a brake cylinder. This will be much larger a bunch of little balls that flop around on a Christmas tree looking ornament thing they can be costly You buy them according to the bore diameter that you're working with I haven't heard anything about microfilms and breaking anything and not having this film Not sure about all that All you're doing here is breaking the glaze You see the crosshatch patterns in the holes that's wonderful we're not trying to kill any of that we're just trying to break the shiny film that's all hopefully since you're block is out on an engine stand You're doing this more or less the right way so now you may want to have a look at your rod and main bearings just to have a look see if you see any copper spots and so on Make sure your pistons all check out for deck height That's the height they stick up out of the block can be measured with a dial indicator many people don't have this they're pretty inexpensive now there's other ways to do this. Hopefully you're going to be buying the modern ring set for the FXE engine that's been put in place by Toyota. That's really about all you can do to this setup other than not do any of it I hope it works out well for you You seem to be on the right track hopefully the car is a keeper for you It hasn't worked out that way for us but hey that's strictly a personal problem.
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Aug 12, 2024
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