Walmart changes my oil I change my head gaskets. Follow along! (HALP)

Long story short engine go boom, Toyota wants 4500$, I want a million dollars, to escape the rental market, and to quit work forever.

So basically I'm creating this post to document my progress and so people who know better can scream at me when I mis-step.

I did a lot of research and acquired a Haynes manual. This research essentially told me the price Toyota quoted is fair. The price is fair because if the engine was hydro locked and bent a connecting rod you may have to have your short block assembly replaced which costs 2300$. It's probably going to cost you 500$ in parts and tools and take a good mechanic about 8 hours. I am not a mechanic and certainly not a good one so this is probably going to take a month or two and I'd laugh at you if you offered me 1700$ to do this for you because it's back breaking leaning over an engine bay and I can't feel my fingers after 8 hours of messing with stuck clips and connectors.

That said I am still determined to do this because I don't have 4500$ I'm REALLY hoping I don't have to replace that short block plus I'm hoping to get some use out of the tools.

But also I've had several garages tell me they weren't interested in repair or hang up on me when I tell them:

• I have a hybrid.
• I need a blown head gasket repaired.
• My car odometer reads 250 summin k ...

A few more comments:

The Haynes manual doesn't talk about checking the warpage on the head gasket surface I am aware of this and will be adding this step. I saw someone use a straight edge and feeler gauges to check. I know that a machine shop will have to fix this if it's out of spec.

I know that I can check if the connecting rod is bent by comparing the elevation of the cylinders relative to each other and making sure they all come all the way up.

Lets color code this for fun:
Completed tasks
Impossible tasks
In Progress.

Where we are so far:

• I pulled the service plug.
• I depressurized the fuel system / unplugged the fuel pump. This step told me to start the engine by depressing the brake and putting the ac on cold but the car would not start with the fuel pump disconnected it only went to accessory and turned back off when i tried to start it.
• Next I removed my bumper to access the heat storage tank. There was no heat storage tank.
• All right smooth sailing... Next step is to drain the coolant in the non-existent heat storage tank, the radiator, and the transaxle.

I

 

HOLD UP OP You probably didn't depressurize the fuel system right... "To depressurize the fuel system, find the wiring harness to the fuel pump under the rear seat cushion. Make the Prius READY and put it in inspection mode so the engine will continuously run. Disconnect the fuel pump and wait for the engine to stall." - Patrick Wong

You might wanna buy the Prius manual from Toyota and cross check it with the manual you understand.

Also do this before you remove the coolant so your engine doesn't overheat.

 

Bigggggg Update! Soooo it's been a while I've been slowly collecting parts and tools and I just restarted this past week but I've made a ton of progress.

• Reconnected the fuel pump, battery, and service plug put the car in maintenance mode and disconnected the fuel pump.
• Jacked the car up and removed the passenger tire and some panels to access the bottom of the engine on this side.
• Drained the oil and the coolant from the radiator.
• Removed the windshield wiper assembly and cowl
• Unhooked all the wiring harnesses.
• Removed the throttle body.
• Removed the intake manifold.
• Removed the EGR uhhh stuff need to do more work on identifying that (BTW gonna clean this)

Sooooo questions

Under the throttle body there was a small pool of oil in the bottom of the intake manifold is this normal? (Picture)

When I attempted to depressurize the fuel system by putting the car in maintenance mode the engine turned on ran for a few seconds and then died but it sounded a lot like it normally does when the hybrid system decides to turn it off. So I did it again with the same result. I'm not sure if I did this properly.

What's left:

• Cleaning the EGR
• Replacing the PCV valve
• Replacing the timing chain (I was told to do this should I buy a kit with sprockets to?)
• Replacing the rotors (After the car is drivable again) (They are horrifically rusted)
• The head gasket which I came to do before I got carried away.
  

Unfortunately it looks like I'm gonna be taking another break I have a lot of parts I need to order (head bolts, pcv, timing chain, brake fluid for the EGR) not to mention winter is coming or not it's hard to tell here.

 

Update: Finally got the expected funds sorted I'm going to try and finish up disassembly this week before my paycheck Thursday.

• Removed water pump
• Removed thermostat housing
• Removed cam cover

When I reached the cams I noticed the whole compartment was uhh painted in oil. I'm not sure how to clean this or if I should...

I have to remove the engine mount on the left side soon for better access to the timing cover. When the engine drops down does it rest on anything? Is it designed to do this? If I have to delay again how long would it be okay to leave it like this? Should I do anything to support it like a jack stand?

 

Update!!

• Pulled out the head gasket! (A lot happened so I'll just summarize it here.)
• Inspected connecting rods all good!
• Measured block (This didn't go to well)

So I think my straight edge is bad. The feeler gauges tests were mostly fine except in the middle where sometimes it slipped through and sometimes it got caught up.

I'm thinking I'm probably going to just have the head machined and stick the new gasket on and hope for the best. Otherwise I'd have to buy a new straight edge to confirm the block is bad, buy all the tools I need to remove the block, have the block and the head machined, etc...

As others have said I might be better off with a new engine at that point but I have a gasket and an engine I don't need anyways so why not give it a good cleaning slap it back together and see how many mileage paychecks I can squeeze out of it...

For curiosity sake how much trouble would it be at this point to pull the engine block as well?

 

Woops! I think I messed up the timing

I found a good timing video that makes me fairly confident I can put it back together right just one thing I'm fuzzy on and I'm not sure if it matters or not... I rotated the engine after the head was off to check if the connecting rods were bent and lost my place. I'm not sure if the engine is on the compression or the exhaust stroke anymore... Does it matter if all the timing marks are in the right place? How do I tell what stroke it's on without the head cams and timing chain installed?

 

So I got the head back from the shop but there are these two male pipes that three hours of fiddling tell me they definitely don't fit together in any way (See bottom left of block picture)

Both of these terminate in a shiny end they aren't holes can I just saw the one off the head to make life easier or would that be a dumb mistake?

Should I take it back to the shop? Is it possible they added it? I don't have any before pictures of the underside of the head unfortunately.

 

That's what I assumed but as I said I tried for a long time to get them to slot together even broke out a mirror and had help. If they ever did align they don't anymore can these be safely removed?