Hi all, my 2006 has been well maintained with 268,000 miles starting to have some issues. Recently I noticed a very strong coolant or burning sweet odor coming from the exhaust. The car also uses a bit of oil about half a qt each 1000 miles. The oil is not milky so I suspect possibly a very slow leaking head gasket. The coolant levels seem to not be dropping or dropping so slowly I have not noticed yet. There are no leaks under the car the smell is coming directly out of the tail pipe. I'm curious if there are any other areas that could be leaking coolant into the intake that I may not be aware of. Could the coolant hose into the throttle body leak into the throttle body itself? Also wondering how involved it is to swap an engine myself. I have a fair bit of experience turning wrenches but I am limited to working in a garage with jackstands, can the engine be pulled from the top or does it have to come out the bottom? The rest of the car is in great shape so if I could fix it for under $1000 I would like to keep it.
This involves a Prius v engine swap, very similar to 3rd gen, but I think the main principles are very similar. In a nutshell, he disconnects the passenger side motor mount, and the transaxle connection, then pulls it out through the through the top with a chain hoist. Swapping in a Gen 4 Prius' 2ZR Engine into the Prius v | PriusChat There's a few peripheral items, water pump and intake manifold, that he removes prior to engine removal. He also struggles for quite a while to get the EGR system off (not present on second gen), and I'm pretty sure that could have been left till the engine was out. Similarly with the exhaust manifold: he loosens all the bolts on it, then as he's lifting the engine out realizes it's still attached, and cleared ok. It's hands down the best video I've seen, lots of good advice, not a slick Toyota video, the real McCoy. Kudos to @Ragingfit .
Honestly I don’t know why anyone would not want to drop the engine down rather than up. I did my Nissan Sentra that way and had no problems. Hardest part was getting the front of the car high enough to clear the transaxle. Layed it on a sturdy piece of cardboard and slid it out. I did use an engine lift to lower it to the ground. You will need to borrow or rent one of those.
I don't have jackstands or a jack tall enough to lift the car that high. Tallest I can lift is about 20"
Once the transaxle is on the ground the front of the car is much lighter. I believe I used stacked 4x4’s to get the height Just don’t go under the car like that. Or you hook the engine lift to a sturdy part of the car and lift it that way. 2 guys could probably lift the front of the car without the weight of the transaxle in there.
He’s 30 and might not have a lot of money. You are retired and own 2 houses. Can’t you remember back 40 years ago when you were that age? Give the guy a break.
There are tons of engines listed on Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market. LKQ is a nationwide recycling company if you need direction...
I was just in your situation (loosing coolant due to a bad head gasket @ 243,000 miles), I had some spare time and bought a head gasket set and put it in myself. It took me about twelve hours total and I'm sure the additional knowledge I gained doing this project will come in handy down the line.
Did you have to break the timing chain to remove the head? I could replace the gasket but i have lots of spare time coming up and I think a lower mileage engine swap would make more sense. It's not so much about the money, I just have this car setup nicely how I like it with good hid head lights, tow hitch, spare winter tires on rims. I recently put in new shocks and springs and still gets great mileage no battery issues at all. Would really hate for the car to go to a waste if I could get it repaired for about 6-800 and a bit of wrenching.
Timing cover has to come off, there is plenty of room to work in passenger side wheel well once motor mount is removed The timing chain comes off easily in one piece and I found my chain, guides and tensioner all to be in excellent shape. The colored chain links made timing the cams to crank very easy, it was a nice engine to work on.
ANY time you open an engine the potential for a problem exists, same is true to swapping an engine with experience (be it used, "rebuilt" or whatever) into a vehicle.... you NEVER REALLY KNOW what you are getting. An engine that fails a leak-down test is due for replacement or rebuild, while a leaking HG is nothing serious IF AND ONLY IF the engine was never overheated or run with low coolant. If neither can be confirmed, plan on a new head, but only after a leak-down test shows the bottom end is serviceable.
Ok now I have a bit of a conundrum. I pulled the plugs and cylinder 1 was quite bad, the plug was oil fouled and lots of deposits on it. The rest looked ok, I did a leak down and all cylinders measured well, the worst was #1 at 10% but the rest all between 4-6%. No bubbles at the filler cap for the coolant. So what now? Should I try a piston soak in #1…?
