Hi Was having coolant leaking into catalytic converter and decided to bypass it with the coolant so it didn't leak into the exhaust anymore. Problem is that I broke the two wires plugged into coolant control valve. I made the bypass but now I get temperature warning symbol on dash. Can I still drive? How do I know the coolant is flowing? Called Toyota and they say I'll have to replace whole harness. Is there any way of just attaching the two wires back?
That's a doozy. GasketMasters heat exchanger bypass youtube mentions those wires in an off hand way saying to remove the zip ties holding those wires so you get more room to move the coolant tubes around. I'd think the first thing for you might want to check out is what those wires plug into and how they are attached to the sensor. I could go outside and take a look under the hood, but it's snowing here today also, and that's the last thing I wanna have to open up.
Went to mechanic and they knew how to repin the pigtail. Temperature warning gone. Warning if you do this bypass, there will be a lot of white smoke coming out of engine bay but that's coolant burning off from tube to catalytic converter. This was very back breaking job. Took me three hours to do. The cowling was hard to take off. The side cowlings were hard too. Getting the hoses off was difficult to pry off as well. Mad respect for the mechanics out there
You'll need to splice in replacement temperature sensor connector. It's a simple variable resistor style sensor; so make sure you've got a really good clean connection - otherwise the sensor reading will be way off. Your options are junk yard or maybe 'help' parts catalogue at your local parts store. Get the part number for that temperature sensor, then look for cars that same sensor is used in. Those are the cars you'll be targeting in the junk yard. I'm pretty sure that sensor covers a lot of Toyotas. Good Luck
The bit-more-money-than-junkyard but possibly-less-hassle approach is to look up that connector in the car's wiring diagram. As this post shows (note, it's just an example, that's not your connector), it shows you Toyota's part numbers for the "repair terminals" to use with that connector. A repair terminal is the proper terminal to use in that connector, pre-crimped to a short length of wire. The length of wire lets you go back up the original wire harness a short way to splice to the undamaged original wire. Toyota uses parallel-splice crimp sleeves, not the butt-splice sleeves that for some reason generic autoparts places mostly have. Toyota's part numbers for the appropriate crimp sleeves are also shown on the diagram. Toyota Service Information and Where To Find It | PriusChat (At the dealer parts window they can also look those things up for you, if you don't want to subscribe to TIS and none of the free options described on that page are available where you are.) Because of the weather-exposed location, the splices would then be overwrapped with self-bonding silicone tape ("rescue tape" or similar). What Toyota charges for "repair wires" is more than you'd guess. But for a kind of once-in-a-blue-moon situation like this, sometimes knowing you can make one stop at the dealer and get the exact right things you need is worth it, compared to prowling around junkyards.
Wasn't sure his dealership would carry or sell him a repair wire, since they quoted him a replacement harness. If he said yes to the replacement harness, they may use a repair wire and charged him labor and new harness. What did PT Barnum say???
