New EGR Cooler Coolant Tip - milk jugs and plastic bottles

The good news: I found a simple Prius-dogma way to drain the coolant without going down to the radiator spigot or spilling everything into the engine.

The bad news: I dropped a 12mm socket and the metal gasket w/ clip between the EGR cooler / engine. I can't see them and have no idea how to retrieve them from the bottom of the engine bay. I'm pretty sure they dropped to the bottom...this is disaster.

EGR coolant tip:
1. Get yourself an empty milk jug (or 2L soda bottle) and a few plastic water bottles.
2. Cut the tops off of each bottle
3. Find the small coolant tube coming out of the throttle bottle to the EGR cooler
4. Hold the large bottle with cutoff top next to it
5. Disconnect the tube and swing it ontop of the large bottle...let it drain
6. Use the small plastic water bottles in the same fashion for the other lines (these bottles are smaller and fit in the tighter spaces). Most of the coolant has been drained already so there won't be much left in the other lines.
7. Empty the large jug and any small bottles into a stock water bottle for storage so you can pour it back later.

This worked out really well for me and didn't leave any spills. You can also see how much coolant was stored in the EGR coolant area - about 15oz. I've got my cooler sitting in Mendel's suggested oxyclean solution in a bucket and hope to blast it out tomorrow with a pressure washer.

 

Yeah, next step is to remove the entire panel. It was the actual socket from the wrench that fell down into the bay...hoping it doesn't hit any of the electric motor moving parts if I can't find it.

Might as well change coolant, invert coolant, and transaxle while I’m down there.

 

You got me @Mendel Leisk , too rich for my blood! Cake too...now you're just showing off - I'm trying not burst a blood vessel during this tedious operation.

Finally got things back together but haven't turned it on yet. I thought I caught most of the coolant but I guess the small amount I spilled was wayy more than I thought..not sure how:


I'm going to replace spark plugs while I have the cowl off and then test it. Do you think it's okay to test the engine on this amount of coolant at idle and maybe a short drive? /forgot to leave the top EGR hose disconnected when refilling but will let is sit overnight and hopefully it makes its way through ...we really need to a make sticky with all the small steps

Also, I just read about someone taking their car to the stealership to upgrade the cooling pump logic in the ECU via a TSB after doing the EGR circuit? I'm lost, is that required for this too?

 

I’ve got 2 gallons of coolant, ready to go to do the flush on the inverter and the engine. Along with transmission fluid. I just thought I’d try to start the car up and make sure no codes start flying if I did something wrong with the EGR circuit and spark plugs.

Still confused why that coolant is so low (it was already at the low mark when I started the circuit) as I thought I caught nearly all of it .