head gasket replacement almost finished

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Tate Owen Engstrand, Jan 19, 2023.

  1. Tate Owen Engstrand

    Tate Owen Engstrand New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2022
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    Location:
    Bastrop, TX
    Vehicle:
    2011 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    Hello. This is my first post. I'd like to start by thanking everyone for their hard work in this forum. Using information I've found here, I've already saved a few thousand dollars.

    I have a 2011 Gen 3 Prius, just past 200K. I did not replace the air intake manifold in time, my EGR cooler clogged, and I started getting the characteristic engine rocking about 40K ago. Since then, I've cleaned both those components and installed a catch can.

    I've also been driving on a blown head gasket for a while. The head gasket is definitely blown: there's a steady loss of coolant, which led to sludge build-up throughout the engine. I purchased a head gasket replacement set and started the tear down soon after the holidays. The old head gasket was flat as a pancake.

    Everything is put back together as of this morning, but a few details are bothering me, and I haven't started the car up again. I wanted to check in here and get advice, or at the least a pep talk.

    1) After restoring the valve train and while restoring the timing chain, I noticed the marks were slightly out of alignment. I had to rotate the engine slightly counterclockwise to get the marks to line up. (Fun fact: Engine flush eats the painted timing chain marks.)

    2) After restoring the timing chain tensioner, I rotated the engine clockwise but have not heard a click. It's possible the click occurred but I didn't hear it. One video I watched says to rotate the engine counterclockwise. Gasketmasters' head gasket replacement video does not give a special procedure for engaging the tensioner.

    3) I had to rewire a couple of pigtails. The two in question are directly wired to one another. One sits on a connector bolted to the front of the block (underneath the air intake manifold). This pigtail is wired directly to another pigtail which attaches with a clip to the dipstick bracket. I did not carefully note which wires were connected to which pins. The pigtails are oriented in such a way that I connected the right-hand pin on one to the right-hand pin on the other, and similarly connected the right-side pins. If this is incorrect, what are the consequences?

    Thanks for any thoughts.
     
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