Oil Catch Can, Eliminate that knock!

If the catch can fills up too fast I'd install a bigger one. It makes a big difference on these engines.

Pixel XL ?

 

Also if you are smelling something like oil, there is a connection that isn’t tight.

I’d double check the work performed as the catch can is preventing all of that stuff from making it to the combustion chamber.

Good luck .

 

I think if I was just changing the PCV valve I'd do it from below, it's slightly easier access, not that far up. From above you can't even see it, can barely touch it, until the intake manifold is off. @NutzAboutBolts has a video on changing it, opts to access from below.

Still, I might be biased, with my 6 month DIY oil changes, taking off the engine underpanel each time.

The main thing: I don't think there's ever a rush to change the PCV valve; the existing one's likely fine. If you've got a replacement valve, it doesn't hurt to wait to an opportune time, when everything's open.

 

Wait til it’s open and the intake manifold is off.

Life is ALOT easier that way.

 

West Coast early risers club. It's compost/garbage collection day up here, mild out, 8C, not even raining. Was coming down like crazy overnight though.

 

We have an early morning amusement park appointment, so the kids have been waking up at 5:30.

Day #3 in the happiest place on earth .

 

On a business trip visiting Daimler headquarters

Pixel XL ?

 

I had a nice Reisling from that area last night.

Complemented the dish we had well.

 

The east coast snowstorm had me delayed in MSP. So I took the train to Mall of America. What an amazing place! They have every store and restaurant you can imagine + a theatre, aquarium, amusement park, putt-putt golf all contained in the same building.


Delta then put me in first class for the connecting flight to PDX.

Pixel XL ?

 

I love free upgrades .

In a previous professional life I did 75-90% travel and was the highest frequent flier level on United. It made personal travel enjoyable as my folks are in northeastern Pennsylvania and the wife’s family is in the Bay Area .

Safe travels back.

 

Roughly 10 months and 30K miles later, here’s what I’ve accumulated with my Ruien OCC. Well over half of the 700ml bottle.



Played around with different intervals and will stick to emptying every 2-3K max.

 

Thanks for posting raw data! You didn’t happen to weigh each of those separate 2,000-3,000 mile interval containers, did you? That would make a beautiful graph that could also be useful if in the very long term, particularly if you would find that a noticeable increase or decrease of the volume from the OCC (per 1,000 miles) would predict failure of the head gasket or piston rings.
To the best I could see, your OCC seems to be collecting pure oily gunk, but I saw no sign of a separated water layer in your collection samples. Is that right? You appear to live in Southern California, so I would not expect condensed water to be a problem, but I think some of the OCC folks who live in the northern states and Canada may have condensed water vapor being collected, particularly in Winter months. If the water would separate out after standing for a long period, we could separately measure how much water versus how much oily gunk each OCC is collecting. That info would help those of us who live in the middle or northern states decide how large an OCC to install, how often to check it, and what to expect to collect in cold versus warm months.

 

No problem! Didn’t get to weigh them unfortunately before consolidating into the big bottle. Correct, I’m in Southern California and haven’t had any issues with water vapor being collected.

 

Living in New England, my OCC is starting to collect water vapor since the temperature has dipped below freezing. Will have to empty it every other week during the Winter months.

BTW the OCC braided hoses from Home Depot have held up well for over 20K miles. May not need to change out.

 

My 07 Camry Hybrid did the violent shake on cold a few days ago on a particularly cold morning. It had been sitting a day or two, outside when usually it's garaged.

I resisted the urge to shut it off, the shaking lasted about 20 seconds and then ran smooth after that. I drove it gently while engine and everything warmed up, and after a while I put the car in B and drove the engine hard trying to keep revs up. I figure the old "Italian tune-up" can't hurt.

It's been running fine ever since, but of course head gaskets are on the back of my mind. One of these weekends will be EGR cleaning + OCC time.

According to some random YouTuber, allegedly the Camry can do this if you happen to shut off the car at just the right time during the engine's cycle. But I don't buy it.

I'll be buying a mini VCI as well. I think I have an old Windows Vista laptop laying around here somewhere....

 

I have a Mishimoto brand OCC and it is a small container. It has about 3 tablespoons of junk every 530+ miles (which is every fill up). I also get that oil/gasoline smell from mine once in a while and it is not pleasant. I will investigate. What the OCC is catching appears as oily gas with moisture in it. The oil level always shows full with my 5000 mile interval oil changes.

It's painful that we are dealing with this after decades of Toyota's experience with engines. They should be embarrassed with this design and issue a recall. There will be a lot of blown head gaskets and expense without this fix and MOST cars will not get an OCC. I'm very grateful to the OP (danlatu) for providing this knowledge. danlatu has saved us a lot of time, money and aggravation. THANK YOU and a big round of applause!

 

Amen!

 

That's pretty much exactly what I did on my third gen. The original hose flares out at the intake end, and I suspect inside diameters at both ends are something tricky/metric. Anyway, I left both ends of the original hose where they were, cut the hose at the middle, rotated to suit (in my case rotated them both downward, oill catch can below), pushed on 3/8" hose barbs* (and hose clamps, likely overkill but meh), then connected 3/8" ID black rubber fuel line, ran to the OCC.

* The hose barbs are insanely tenacious, once you push a hose on they're nigh impossible to pull off. Last time what I did was chuck the hose barbs in a drill press, and using it like a lathe, took a file and knocked the sharp edges of the bars, a bit. A Pex connector would likely be better, but they were not available at the time.

 

When I installed the catch can on our 2010 last year around this time, I heated the hose pieces using hot water to get the rubber pliable enough to make the insertion process easier.

Worked like a charm.