Hi everyone I just did my headgasket as I experienced the notorious shaking and have been using this forum as a great resource for it. The car is running great however, I have a check engine light for P0016, I cleared twice and it came back twice so it must be a real thing. From my research it seems that it's possible that my timing chain skipped a tooth. Does anyone know of an easy way to check if this is correct or if it is something else? Is the only way to make sure it didn't skip a tooth is to pull the timing chain cover off and re-align it? Any advice for those who've experienced this would be greatly appreciated! Car runs great other wise.
P0016 - Deviation in crankshaft position sensor signal and camshaft position sensor signal (2 trip detection logic) How did you identify and find this code?
How smooth is the engine running? If it's running well, the chain is likely correct. It doesn't just suddenly jump a tooth unless the tension fails, or something else fails. You can pull the valve cover off, put the engine at TDC(for intake) and check the postion of the cams. No, the colored link likely won't be in the picture, unless you are really lucky! If the cam sprockets are in the correct postion, I would suspect the cam and/or crank sensor(s). But since this appeared after replacing the head gasket, it could be a loose connection, or broken wire? You might want to clean the connections also.
If you slip off the crankshaft "pulley" / harmonic damper and peek just so past the end of the shaft and the oil seal, you are able to make out the timing dot and whether the yellow colored link is next to it. And of course the cam sprockets are easily visible just by taking the valve cover off. Avoid the mistake of expecting the painted links to be on their marks every time you look. On a gen 3, once out of every nine times you see the painted links go by, they will be on their alignment marks. As long as you don't have to crank the chain more than nine times all the way around and you see them in position once, it's ok. If you've seen them come around nine consecutive times and never all on their marks, it's not ok,
?? The connectors for the cam and crank sensors.... Since that's where the issue is. But it doesn't hurt to check them all, Make sure no pins are bent. And check the wire harness. Did you have an issue with them before you replaced the head gasket? If not, you know it has to be something you did or didn't do. You could have easily pinched a wire, everything is tight with the harness.
I would expect that your cam timing is off a tooth. When putting things together, you must follow the factory manual procedure exactly to release the chain tensioner before starting the engine. Otherwise it can jump. Usually, it can be off 1 tooth and still "drive ok", but it's not right - hence the code. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Thanks for everyone's help! I was able to take off the timing cover and reset the timing chain and this time around I gave the crank a few rotations to make sure it stayed in the correct spot. I believe the timing chain was off a tooth or so. I've been driving it every day this week and so far so good, no engine codes. Hopefully this helps anyone in the future that got a P0016 immediately after doing the headgasket.
