100K maintenance fun

As far as the PCV valve, in previous vehicles I never actually replaced the valve. I'd just remove it, use some carb cleaner spray to clean all the sludge and stuff out, and it seemed to work good as new

Operation in a cold winter climate will probably make the PCV valve plug/stick a lot sooner than running in a more "normal" climate

 

Hello Friends,
I just completed most of my planned 100K maintenace on my 2007 Prius and I thought I would share some observations with the group. First, I want to thank all of you for your excellent contributions and service tips that made the project much easier for me. Because I got to 99K miles in a little over 3 years my service list was a bit shorter than others. I skipped some of the things that are more time dependant like struts and focussing on wear and engine stuff: Engine coolant, PCV valve, Water pump (it was leaking), spark plugs (slightly early), serpentine belt, Transaxle fluid, air & cabin filter, Inverter coolant, all chassis parts inspection and brake checks.

First the water pump -- it looked like it was used up. I noticed some loss of coolant a few months ago but it did not continue. By the time I got to it there was a very visible growth of pink fuzz over the whole shaft and the inside of the pulley was coated
with pink residue. (see photo attached) However, unlike most water pump failures I did not observe any free end play of the pump shaft. Maybe Hobbit is right and this is the new "normal" but I was nervous so I changed it.

Now, I had a few problems. First, the bolts holding the pulley to the pump were rusted and seized. There was no way I could get them loose with the belt holding the pulley. So, I went ahead and removed the belt tensioner and belt. Second problem was the tensioner was rusted to the bracket. After I cracked the nut loose on the shaft of the tensioner I had to spray the whole assy in PB Blaster for a few minutes before I could get the adjustment bolt to move and tensioner to slide. When I got it all free I cleaned up the main bolt with the wire wheel and coated everything
with anti-seize. I did the same thing with the adjusting bolt, chased the threads, then wire wheel, then anti-seize. It's all coated in
gray now so I hope this will not happen again. You might want to check yours and think about servicing it before it rusts solid.

Now it was back to the water pump pulley. I was stuck now to find a way to hold the pulley from turning while I crakced those bolts loose. The solution came from an old steel s-hook laying around the garage. I reformed it's shape as the picture shows, and then hooked it inside the tensioner bracket and through one of the pulley holes. Then, I could get a 10mm socket, ratchet, and handle extension on the bolt. My thought was that if I broke the head off the bolt who cares, I'l replacing the pump anyway. As long as I can get the pulley free I can buy more bolts at the hardware store. Fortunately a little more PB Blaster and a piece of extension pipe with the s-hook holding the pulley and they came right off. After that the rest was easy, you just need thin hands. Incidentally, the replacement pump was $40.00 at Adavance Auto
Parts. Not sure what the dealer price would have been.

Replacing the coolant was a snap thanks to the engine coolant change thread and guidance from Patrick Wong, Galaxee, and Jreed.
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...shooting/30813-changing-engine-coolant-2.html. The process seemed to work as advertised. We drained from the yellow valve on the storage and got about 6-7 quarts out. We used the trick detailed by Patrick and Jreed to run the electric pump and re-fill the storare tank. We managed to get at least 6 quarts back in before starting the engine and the top hose was hot after running in inspection mode for a while. I had heat coming out ouf the vents and the scanguage said 160. I then drove the car on the highway long enough to see the thermostat open on the scangauge and temps maintain between 185 and 190.

Incidentally, on the radiator air bleed vent is a small tube and you can put a hose on it. It you put the end of the hose higher than the radiator cap you can fill and bleed air without spilling any coolant.

OK, more in the next post...

 

Continuing from my previous post...

The Serpentine belt was worn and showed cracks on the inside so I think this fits with other people's observations that 100K miles is about enough for that guy.

The spark plugs were almost identical to the photos shown by Hobbit and others. They barely looked used and certainly would have lasted longer. I put in the exact replacement NGK plugs and used anti-seize on the threads. I also observed the rough feeling when turning out the old ones, like the threads were a bit dirty. The new ones threaded right in and torqued without issue. The original plugs can go longer without much risk.

I changed the PCV valve. The old valve looked perfectly clean and made the same rattle noise as the new one. I also removed the PCV hose and found no sludge or blockage inside. Inside the throttle body, I saw the same puddle of light brown liquid that others have observed. I have seen this whenever I change the air filter. I stopped bothering to clean it out as it just re-appears. My suggestion is that this is really just oil vapor condensation from the PCV. The reason it looks cleaner than the oil is because the heavier oil contaminants will not evaporate easily so we are seeing basically distilled oil. That's my theory, don't know if I'm right or not. Either way, I use Synthetic Mobil 1 or Pennzoil and I saw nothing in the way of any contamination, black build-up or anything in the PCV or throttle body so I think that adds credence to the value of synthetic oil use. In fact, my oil after 5K - 6K miles is so clean I use it on the lawn equipment and generators rather than throwing it away.

BTW - Whether you are doing plugs or PCV valve, take off the cowling. It's easier than it sounds and saves a ton on fiddling with wrench and socket attachments. I don't know if the pcv valve could be removed with the cowl on. I'm sure someone clever on this forum has done it but with the amount of wiring to disconnect and move out of the way, it's just too much effort to avoid a dozen 10mm screws on the cowl.

My car does not have the earlier model inverter coolant pump so I just did the change of coolant. It went precisely as others have described. It only took a few cycles to stop the air bubble noises and I could verify the agitation in the tank when I was done. I managed to get the same amount of coolant back in as I got out so I feel OK. A longer drive will be needed to verify it it burbs a bit more air or not.

I do have a comment about coolant changes. Both the engine and inverter coolant looked brand new. They were not even particularly cloudy as others have reported. I always wonder if I'm wasting money changing them this early. I know the heat ages them and reduces the corrosiion inhibitors but is this really dominated by mileage or could I have gone longer, like the full 5 years? It's piece of mind not to see brown water and bits of debris when you drain the radiator but then again it feels like a waste. I saved a sample for testing so maybe I can get some data from mine to post. Maybe those of us with high miles in short times could extend this interval longer?

I also changed the transaxle fluid. I'm one of the ones here using Redline D6 and this was a 40K interval. I'll post the Blackstone lab data when it comes back but from a visual and smell inspection, I doubt there will be any surprises. Here is a case where I think shorter change intervals is more important than which fluid we pick.

OK, I think those are my relevant observations. I hope this helps add to the collective knowledge. Thanks to Hobbit, PatrickWong, Galaxee, and everyone else who documents this stuff so well even an engineer can do it!

 

Hi Steve,

Thanks for sharing your observations.

I would not have kept that engine coolant pump in service and believe you showed good judgment by replacing it. A very clever idea to use that S-hook to hold the pulley in place.

Regarding the engine coolant visually appearing in good condition, I also am used to seeing nasty, smelly, and rusty coolant when working on other vehicles, especially American cars. However I'd rather replace the coolant before it might be totally worn; rather than allowing corrosion to develop. 100K miles for the factory fill is a good service life.

 

I've done that for decades on my cars and it has never failed me yet.:thumb:

Satwood, it was wise to change the coolant. With a little luck you won't have to mess with anything in that area for another 100k miles. The only thing I would question is using an Advance Auto pump instead of a Toyota pump. It's probably OK but a Toyota pump would give you better odds of making it another 100k miles.

 

I changed my Redline D6 today too. Will send it out for an UOA Monday. Lots of questions lately about CVT Fluid change so here's a little help. There's 2 pics of the CVT from the bottom of that car. One is the fill hole and the other which is a female hex is the drain.
The fill nut is a 24 mm and the hex is a 10 mm hex.

Few things I noticed. One is how dark with metal wear my o mile to 5K pull is. This is the Stock WS fluid pulled at 5,000 miles. I refilled with Redline D6.
The 3 bottles of fluid are virgin edline D6 on the left then WS 5K in the middle and then on the end is Redline pull at 32,000 miles which has 27,000 miles of wear.

You can clearly see on the 5K WS pull how dark the fluid is with metal wear in solution. I am slightly surprised as our CVT's don't see the pressures and clutch wear that regular auto's do. This is just gear, bearing and chain wear.
Which I think totally negates all the dielectric claims of WS fluid. Dielectric fluid only works if its not compromised with any contaminants. Much less with highly conductive metal in solution.
And at only 5K its pretty contaminated with metal wear.

I like that the magnetic drain plug had only a very small paste of wear metal after it running for 27,000 miles on Redline. Not one speck of metal. Just liquified wear. And not alot of that either. Seems like its very happy with the lubricity of Redline.

2 odd things I noticed. One is with the WS in one bottle and the 27K Redline in the other when you shake up the bottles the WS gets pretty foamy. The Redline is alot less foamy and what little foam there is in the Redline bottle turns to liquid much faster than WS.

The other is when you shake both bottles simultaneously and then stop the WS dripping down the inside of the bottle is much slower than the Redline. So even though the Redline has 5 times more wear than the WS it appears much slippier.

Also as far as filling the CVT with fluid in your driveway I have been using the setup in the picture. Its a hand pump. Along with that buy 4 feet of 3/8 fuel hose and snake it down from the top of the engine and into the cvt fill hole so you can stand up over the engine and pump easily. The pump is supposed to screw on to any gallon container but in the 10 years I've been using it I have not been able to find any plastic bottle that fits its threads. Not a real big deal you just hold the pump in the bottle. But its very very fast. You can pump in the 4 quarts in about a minute.No fuss or muss.

There's a good thing and a bad thing with my set up though.
The good thing is 3/8 inch fuel hose fits into the fill hole of the CVT really perfectly. Nice and tight and cannot slip out. Perfect fit.
The bad thing is its so tight that you cannot see when its full. It will not allow fluid to drip back out of the hole as your indicator I'm full. No big deal just keep track of how much you pump in.

Should have an UOA on the 5K WS and the Redline 27K in a few days.

 

Fair point, thanks. I took my chances because their pumps have not failed me on other engines so far. I don't really think a water pump should fail in 100K miles, especially on this engine. Count this as another one of those data gathering experiments. If this one lasts less than 100K miles then the Toyota pump would be considered better.