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Super cold (around 15 degrees) start this morning, engine started very rough

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Technical Discussion' started by nivekonbass, Nov 19, 2022.

  1. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    yea my bad the nut is off :p Not a bolt. so to be clear, the difficult nut, the "nut from hell", I got it off. The stud is still there though.

    and to asmrdogman, yeah i do have the required E8 socket for the stud, confirmed it fits on the easy one so that's not it. i'll try it again tomorrow after i'm well rested and stuff.
     
    #61 nivekonbass, Dec 6, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2022
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  2. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    If you can get both studs off the rearmost connection (cooler to manifold) then you don’t need to remove that lower cooler bracket stud. That’s basically how @NutzAboutBolts does it, in the video.
     
  3. douglasjre

    douglasjre Senior Member

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    And this is my point. "If" is not a diagnosis. He skipped the steps in the middle in-between symptom and diagnosis. And clogged EGR is not a reasonable preliminary diagnosis here for the reasons discussed. One can not jump to diagnosis from symptom without doing the work in-between. I'm actually unsubscribing from this topic because it's so frustrating to see this happen and everybody goes off on a tangent about any EGR when the work was never done to make the diagnosis and that's not a reasonable conclusion even if to work was done anyway.
     
    #63 douglasjre, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
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  4. Grit

    Grit Senior Member

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    I’m still subscribed. When a person takes their car to mechanic for a small issue and the mechanic suggest out of the box solutions and want to charge the person crap ton of non necessary services, that’s what happen to this thread and op minus repair fees and costs.
     
  5. Grit

    Grit Senior Member

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    The missing link and best part is history of any knock start up issues that were left out. If I started running outside and feel a pop in my foot. I don’t Immediately panic and see a doctor, get x rays and change my diet to promote bone marrow hormone to strengthen up what bone density that is left and begin taking supplements for bone growth, that’s what it’s like reading this thread. When the pop was just air escaping one of the toe knuckles like bending a finger popping it’s knuckles.
     
  6. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    I called out the catastrophizing in the beginning of this thread. But I want you to know my Prius is my livelihood right now. This is quite embarrassing to say, but I really cannot afford to take it to someone. I cannot afford to pay someone 100 dollars for an hour just to do a diagnosis right now and then have them potentially tell me it's gonna cost me thousands. The diagnosis is pretty much the cost of everything I'm doing actually! I can only diagnose what I can diagnose with what I have, it's just where I am at. And I did everything I could and found there to be no actual problem. But I use whatever tools necessary, including this forum to bounce ideas off of people. Since this work will need to be done inevitably or isn't a bad idea to do it, why wouldn't I do it just for some piece of mind. I understand the "right" way of doing things, but to be honest dude i barely have cheeseburger money right now. The big project here was just an oil catch can and spark plug change; anything else, was my own decision. I wanted to do these things before I bought the Prius when I did my research, now after that morning "scare" i'm just gonna do it now. You're dealing with a service worker here barely making ends meet. If I could really afford to take my Prius to a dealer or someone to fix it. I definitely would! On top of that if I could afford it, I promise you, as an american muscle car fanatic, I would not be driving a Prius lol. As far as the egr stuff goes, I'm just setting up myself up for success in the future. Even if I don't do shit with the EGR, I got the annoying nut off, so now when I really do need to do it, it's not a huge deal. It's possible that today I may not even touch the EGR if it takes too long cause I gotta get back to working.

    Also, leave Mendel alone breh
     
    #66 nivekonbass, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
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  7. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    Any tips on how I can mount this occ? Nuts and bolts put it by the headlight but of course had a special bracket that you need a 3d printer to get it..... I'm using the same one as him except it came with a bracket. Not enough clearance with the provided bracket.
     
  8. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    You can cobble something to mount in that, without 3d printing. @danlatu got everyone started on that. It’s a popular location.

    A few have mounted it between engine coolant reservoir and engine, pretty tight though. And you need to keep in mind: engine is “spring mounted”, can shift around a bit.

    I put a slotted angle bracket on lower-front cross beam, then bolted my occ’s to the upstanding leg of that. Basically low-mount, under intake manifold. Hose (SAE307 fuel line, 3/8” ID) runs under a foot. The bracket to beam interface needs some flexible gasket, since that beam flexes. The underside of that beam is the front jacking point.

    someone else mounted down low, but attached at the blanking plate on engine block, where starter motor would go (on Corolla application).

    first link in my signature has link to the Mother of All OCC threads, started by @danlatu.
     
    #68 Mendel Leisk, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
  9. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    I'll try to figure something out, if I don't i'll just wait till summer to do the OCC too and figure out a way to get that made for me. I'm not trying to be too ghetto about it. This is what I meant when people don't link tools. Who the crap actually has a 3D printer to go and make that bracket? Like for reals dood?

    While I have you, is there a Prius model where these problems are substantially easier to work on? Like to where I don't have to remove 30 bolts to access the spark plugs, or 2 bolts to remove the EGR like what I'm used to? Is the new Prius like this too? It's absolutely ridiculous what this took.
     
  10. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    4th gen Prius spark plug access is slightly easier, I think you can just loosen and shift something, not as involved.

    4th gen Prius EGR is bad news and good news. Bad news: access is horrible, you need to loosen and shift the inverter. Good news: you'll probably NEVER need to clean the EGR.

    regarding OCC support, you just need to get inventive. This is an earlier bracket I used, for my lower cross beam mount location. I’ve since switched to dual OCC’s. The slots up to edge of upstanding leg are so I can jus loosen the bolts on my OCC mounting collar, lift the OCC up and off. Much easier in cramped quarters, than if you need to take bolts right out:

    2B6EBFE4-32E3-4A71-84D0-A90CFE83D2D2.jpeg
    (I’m now using sim bracket, but wider upstanding leg for dual OCC.)

    In place:

    49BDC4A0-9438-4276-B864-BBACBA4906D8.jpeg

    Overall pic with plumbing:

    F1598CAD-F89F-4829-8B7B-325271EC4237.jpeg

    (Other guys my age have pics of the grandkids…:rolleyes:)

    addendum: in lieu of 3d printing, you could get one of those plastic chopping boards, lay out what you want with compass and straight edge, then cut it out.
     
    #70 Mendel Leisk, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
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  11. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    Well those other people your age who show pics of the grandkids probably aren't as useful as you have been. thx again
     
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  12. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    Ok so here's where I'm at. I put everything back in except for the cowl/windshield wiper crap. I started my car just now and it sounds like it's got a slight tick? Didn't drop anything in there i'm sure of it. I'm not sure if there's a problem though, it's cold and still warming up. I took a video. What do you think this could be. So again I just did a intake manifold install/spark plug change/pcv change. Spark plugs gapped correctly .043 per the interwebs.

    These are the plugs I got.

    See video : December 7, 2022 - YouTube
     
    #72 nivekonbass, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
  13. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Slightly off-topic, but I hope you scrutinized those Amazon plugs very, very carefully before installing them, following the guidelines for spotting counterfeits, such as these:

    https://www.ngkntk.com/newsroom/blog/emea/fake-or-not/

    Counterfeit brand-name plugs on marketplaces like Amazon are big business, and they can fail in various ways. One not-so-happy way is when the not-really-iridium electrode melts off and bounces around in the cylinder, an engine-ending event.
     
  14. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    I heard about this. The seller was high rated and all the feedback of the seller was great (OverstockDirect). I did do a check of the box, didn't know about the lettering and stuff on the plug itself, i'll remove them all, re-gap, and look again.
     
  15. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    The manufacturers of these newfangled plugs with hard, delicate electrodes generally say that they should come properly gapped from the factory, and not be gapped in the field.
     
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  16. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    Well I did gap them prior to .43. it's not blurry just my camera 20221207_145336.jpg 20221207_145331.jpg 20221207_145324.jpg 20221207_145336.jpg 20221207_145331.jpg 20221207_145324.jpg
     
  17. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    I took them out and put them back in, seems ok. One of the plugs was at .40, mustve happened when putting it into the cylinder. not sure what caused that but its good now. weird!!!! I gotta say, dealing with this in cold weather is horrible.

    False alarm. Thx everybody, i appreciate every one of you
     
    #77 nivekonbass, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
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  18. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Here’s the spark plug gap specs:

    213C66C9-1336-42A5-9083-38D361BA6CEA.jpeg
    Plugs tend to come pre-gapped, I’d think closer to the tight end of the spec.

    these are the original Denso that came out of mine about a week back, at 12 years (and 96K~ kms):

    B39698EB-938E-4D19-A756-2D25D98C7F36.jpeg

    9255AA75-92B2-428B-BC91-EB848F0145F5.jpeg
     
    #78 Mendel Leisk, Dec 7, 2022
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
  19. Michael Wood

    Michael Wood Active Member

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    I would try really hard to clean out enough space in the garage to squeeze the Prius in at night over the winter. My car never does the start rattle when I garage it overnight - my garage never drops below 30 and the air is always dry. Try that first.

    The next easiest thing to do is remove the intake manifold and dump out the liquid that is pooling up under the throttle body. There's moisture in your intake. Watch the beginning of this video. It's easy to fix this problem, and easy to pull your EGR tube off and inspect it. Messing with the cooler is a PITA, and you may not have to.

     
  20. nivekonbass

    nivekonbass Member

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    10 steps ahead of you boss :p. I did all that. As far as the garage I'm going to get the family together to empty that shit cause it's a joke. I appreciate it though.