Accumulator replacment c1256 accumulator low pressure

Today is my lucky day and I wanted to share it with you guys. My kids prius abs pump was kicking on and off and I knew what the deal was. Pulled the code sure enough bad accumulator. That's not a fun job, I had a spare brake assembly in the garage I got off ebay months back.

I got to staring at it, and pictures, and decided why not just swap out the accumulator?
Be aware, the good one is under a lot of pressure even after sitting in the garage for months. The ebay accumulator blew off the assembly so you have to be ready for it. I used a ratcheting dog bone that was 12 inches long to keep my fingers out of the line when it let go. It blew fluid everywhere so you have to wrap a towel around it. put it on the ground pointing at a brick wall or something to stop it and keep your hands and fingers out of the way!!!

I could not find the replacement part new, I even had someone reach out to nok in japan without luck. I am sure you could grab any toyota accumulator of a similar size but I have to prove that to be sure. I will be looking for a replacement.

I had my son remove the wiper cover upper and lower, and I reached in and removed a #10 nut that was holding some pipe in the way. But after the nut removal I pulled it out of the way. I used the same long dog bone expecting the accumulator in the car to blow like the ebay one did but it did not. If you misdiagnose and your accumulator is good you can bank it will fire off like a water rocket we used to play with when we were kids. keep your hands out of it. I backed mine off till it fell off using the wrench with fingers clear. very uneventful.

I pulled out the old accumulator, screwed in the replacement, and powered on the car. It filled up and stopped just like it was supposed to. Cleared codes and drove it around without the wiper stuff installed . No bleeding nothing. No bad lights, no error codes, stick a fork in it we are done!

Instead of half a day of my life wasted I was done in less than an hour! HUGE WIN!!!!

heed my warning and just stay clear but expect it to blow apart if its good.

 

I keep looking on eBay for a gen 3 accumulator cause I think it would work perfect but these JUNK dealers think they have gold which really chaps my nice person. Look at their listings and their other junk master cylinders and abs are 30-50 bucks but because Toyota is sticking it to us with these high failure items everyone is getting in the gouging game. Plus now you have to pay tax on JUNK! I know there are brand new accumulators that would work on these units just fine I just cant find them. yet. It would be awesome to identify a solution for these gen2 accumulator that is brand new and would last same as new. Even if it lasted half its an easy fix!

My kids has been leaking for a year without a trouble light so that means the part isn't some high tech got to be between this and this to work. It had a hole in it and still worked fine. That's quite a window of compatibility. If anyone has a source for accumulators that they have dealt with post their names and I will reach out to them.

 

Just a follow up with some pictures.
2016 TOYOTA PRIUS Power Brake Booster Electric 47070-47070 OEM
73 bucks off eBay. The new parts are cheaper and I am expecting it to last longer since its only 2 years old vs 14.

 

It fit but is so painful to replace and bleed I didnt have the time to try it. I can say one thing kind of sad...is the unit in the kids car that I swapped out the accumulator worked for another year but then the rest of it failed. My guess is the motor died from trying to keep up with the bad accumulator. I got a junk yard replacement that was bad, and had to go back and pull another that finally worked. I gave come to the conclusion that if you let an abs module run in an unhappy state it will trash itself fast. On the second replacement I pulled the contactor before I pushed the power button to bleed the pump and front brakes. Then plugged in the contactor and finished the process.

 

Ok I am back. One of my other gen 2 prius accumulator failed and I put the part on it listed above off a 2016. It was relatively painless, I didnt bleed it, I just swapped it like last time. Sounds fine, may not last but I was afraid if I didnt update this thread I would forget so here is the update. Swapped it out and its working fine at this time. No clearing codes, because I had to unhook the battery to change the part. I drove it around the neighborhood and it felt fine and no errors so far. I will update this thread when it fails.

 

when you have a accumulator failure, which that is the error I got was that accumulator was not holding pressure, you can just unscrew it since it will have no pressure. I took the other accumulator apart a long time ago when I was fitting it up for testing so it never had any pressure in it.

when my sons abs module failed a year after I swapped the accumulator I had a pick and pull part with a warranty, a short warranty so could not try this replacement 2016 accumulator. I was happy to be able to install this one onto my family car and told everyone if it acts up, lights come on, tell me. The accumulator going out wont cause the brakes to fail, it will just throw the error again, run the motor till it fails. If it fails I will just go get one from the junk yard for 100 bucks and install it, no biggie. I will post when this abs module fails, but right now it sounds fine and acts fine so I hope it will last a couple years. If you dont hear from me, its still working fine. I did change the accumulator out promptly so hopefully that will save the pump and everything will be good. We shall see.

 

Looks like it lasted 6 months. I must admit it was never 100 percent right, because the pump was kicking on more often than it was supposed to. But it did last as a daily driver for 6 months. Time to go to the junk yard and locate a full replacement.