Blown Head gasket rebuild....@297k

If anyone lives in the west coast of Florida, Tampa Hybrids is the place to go for anything serious like a head gasket! Took mine in at 200k and got the recommended New Head Gasket, New Spark Plugs, New PCV Valve, Coolant Change, New Water Pump, Throttle Body Clean, EGR Service. If I had done the EGR and PCV Valve at 100k then probably could have skipped the head gasket, but now it's good for another 100k before I should do them again.

 

Just another hundred K.? That's it... hell I got 245 out of the first go round. And would expect another 245 after I change the motor or do whatever I'm doing. But these are not the ones so we are not.

 

I believe he was talking about the maintainence.....

 

I’d recommend you clean the EGR every 50k miles, and replace water pump/thermostat every 100k. See top two links in my signature; on a phone turn it landscape to see signatures.

 

How many miles do u have on your original 3rd gen head gasket

 

?

 

100k kilometres. Yeah I know…

 

Keep us updated over time.

Your intellectual argument that cleaning EGR passages leads to longer lifespan of HG is plausible. Just wondering if we have a study of some data on this.....perhaps u could start a poll in turd gen forum?

 

I agree. Change the oil often, keep the car from burning oil. Keep the egr clean. Theres no head gasket issues.
What i would say for people who need to pass inspections/emissions:
1. wrap the lower pcv hose in insulation so you get less condensate in the winter, so you don't get the dreaded cold start knock.
2. Clean egr circuit.
With all of that the car is extremely reliable. For the most part if you don't go too long on oil changes and you don't burn oil the egr doesn't clog very fast.

 

Hey all hope you're all doing well, been ages since ive posted on here, not for any reason other than i stopped messing with cars and have just been sitting back (mostly in the passenger seat!!) of the other halves utterly dependable old 2008 with 610,000km original everything other than battery!

Picked up a 2012 Prius V (7 seater) with 297,500km and a bad HG so here I am on this thread (the one thread which I hoped to never need) a few pages in so far already thinking oh crap, what have i got myself in for lol

Will read the whole lot over the next few days, right now im about to get busy removing all the stuff I know how to do to like wiper panel, both manifolds, egr, engine mount water pump & so on

I want to get out of this cheap as possible because I dont know what sort of life to expect from the lithium battery in this wagon, but at the same time i hope to get a few years out of the repair

No questions (so far) just wanted to say hi again, and thanks to everyone here that's contributed to this thread

Matt

 

Hey all, quick question when turning the engine over with ratchet to get TDC is it normal to hear the damper or something in that area clanging around, doesn't sound great! last thing i want to do is put a head gasket on this thing if the damper or transaxle is stuffed.

Inside the rocker cover is really yuck! its a big smelly varnished up mess in there, cant have been serviced very often (if ever) and when it has the cheapest dino oil must have been used. Most people perhaps wouldn't proceed with this engine but I will wait until the head is off before making a decision, wont be buying a used engine for this V, general condition is lacking! and the factory lithium pack and transaxle etc is all unknown ..

Cheers

 

@Danno5060 was having damper problems (he refers to it as flywheel); you can check out his posts here:

Dan05979 | PriusChat

It can be a casualty, with coolant getting into the combustion chambers.

I believe it was him, that bought a replacement damper through Amayama (much cheaper than Stateside IIRC), had a mechanic do the replacement.

 

The only guy I remember doing a damper was Johnnychimpo. I think he did a couple hg in a row followed by an overheating gen4 frankengine and then a damper/transaxle. Even had a clogged catch can blowing froth up the gen4 dip stick he thought was another hg. He has disappeared for most of the last year, maybe he joined Bisco and bought a bleach blonde bad built Bolt.

 

I think it was another Dan0 - 5979.

 

I was hoping it's normal to hear some clicking and clunking from the transaxle area when hand turning the engine, maybe the chain inside the trans or something I'm not sure? it's not all that loud, but I can hear stuff happening in there!

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

You can rule this one out.......no chain in the Prius trans. ......

 

Yeah sorry i figured out soon after posting, gen2 (proper Prius) had a chain but gen3 changed for gears..

I removed the starter motor blanking plate and other little rectangular plastic inspection cover from the bell housing area and everything seems fine in there, no signs of broken springs, mashed bolt heads or scraping, so for now I'm just going to ignore what I can hear, maybe the damper is a little clunky but hopefully its not catastrophically mashed out!

Checked on another gen3 and can hear some clanging around going on in there but maybe not as much, the second car still had spark plugs so couldn't turn it over quite as easily as the V that I'm working on.


Only have the cam block, tensioner and timing cover bolts left to do then I can get the head off and inspect the bottom end, after seeing the varnish inside cam block I'm not feeling great about it tbh, doubt the lady i got this wagon from had the oil changed, ever ..

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

When you get'er running, you may be interested in this .....

 

I am on my 3rd oil change using that, I don't think it is really working.
My oil cosumption and not changed. But, they did say "3" oil changes.
Though they didn't say anything about mileage.
That link is VERY high. walfart has it for $29.00.

 

......Yup ....I posted the link for reference only ......