Category: automotive

My 2014 Toyota Prius uses iridium-tipped spark plugs such as the Denso SK16R11 or the NGK IFR5A11, both usually set you back around $20, but if you buy them from the official toyota dealer, they will set you back $150 ! but I have no choice, as the market is flooded with counterfeit spark plugs, and changing the spark plugs on the prius requiers the removal of the wiper area !

What about those $150 spark plugs (I will check the exact price and update this soon, so when I took them out after less than 5000 KMs and found two of them broken ! specifically the Insulator Nose (shield) around the copper core !

I had a failing head gasket, and the removal was part of fixing that, so I thought that the seeping oil or water into the piston might have been the problem, but since i maintained their order after removing them, It turns out that the one that has the inner shield fully broken was in a piston that did not suffer any head gasket leak !

Seems the Prius is known to blow head gaskets, reason being attributed to the hybrid system, the engine switches off and on so often, heating up and cooling down all the time.

I am using the official TIS repair manuals. I am warning you, this is a lengthy job, it is not something you can finish in a day.

Tools

There are plenty of tools that you will need along the way, everything from the tools needed to take out the EGR, to a triple square bit to remove the cylinder head bolts, in any case, here is a list of tools i recall needing

• A ratchet, breaker bar, and a cheater bar
• A torque wrench (I use ACDelco’s ARM302-4s)
• Oil filter removal tool
• 10mm bi-hexagon wrench (An M12 (12mm triple square) bit will do if you fail to obtain the bi-hexagon ! but you will feel a bit of wiggle in it)
• A pair of pliers
• 12mm socket (Many screws)
• 14mm socket (Many screws)
• 19mm socket (The harmonizer / crank pulley)
• Feeler gauges down to 0.004 (0.004 is the maximum acceptable engine warp)
• A super straight bar to assess the engine against (Laser cut)
• Harmonic Damper removal tool such as Schley 64300 (I made my own simple tool that works)
• A tool to take out the valve stem seals (I made my own)
• Patience

The Harmonic Damper removal tool

There are many ways to remove the pulley (Harmonic Damper), 1- the most common of which is using a torque impact drill, it just works, but my gut feeling tells me it might not be wise, if it was, Toyota would have approved it, 2- another popular way is to use a belt or strap and tie it to a strong part of the vehicle and around the pulley to use friction to hold the pulley in place, problem with this method is that if it is not 100% horizontally aligned, and the pulley is being pulled in or out, it might cause damage, 3- and there is the Toyota way, which is based on using a tool to hold the pulley in place while you loosen the screw, examples of such a tool is the Schley Products 64300, I don’t have access to such a tool, so I improvised a tool that holds the pulley against the engine mount

Parts

Distilled water

7 Liters of distilled water, You are probably going to need to use distilled water before engine coolant to flush the engine from the contaminated coolant in the car, it was contaminated because your head gasket broke, and exhaust went through that coolant.

Engine Coolant

(Applies to both Fix and repair)
If the coolant has been contaminated with engine exhaust, you will need to flush and add distilled water, then after a day (a day of light use, and zero days of the car sitting), remove as much of the water as you can and add the SLLC coolant (Do not run on distilled water for more than 1 day).

Totota’s coolant is super expensive, if you are looking for something other than the OEM, or want to understand the risks and advantages, check out my Toyota’s coolants post

The car takes 6.5 liters of coolant, every container is 2 liters !

Oil and oil filter

(Applies to both Fix and repair)

if the engine oil has been contaminated (And it has), you will need a new filter and new oils

Expected cost (35JD)

Gasket kit

PN: 04111-37316

The repair manual states that you will need a new gasket kit, the gasket kit has the following parts.

FIPG 103

PN: 00295-00103

The form in place gaskets from Toyota are best, but they are very pricey, I went with an aftermarket German brand (Victor Reinz Reinzosil) that is high quality (Used by German brands as OEM !) and have my fingers crossed, the Toyota FIPG costs around $50, the Victor Reinz Reinzosil (Universal) aftermarket brand costs less than 6 dollars

Cylinder head bolts

(90910‑02164 and later was superseded by 90910‑A2009)

Those are Torque to yield bolts, when you install them, they are stretched, and should not be used again, In my case unfortunately, Al markazeyah Toyota does not provide them, I was told today that they did have them at one point, and they cost $5 each (10 of them is $50), but they no longer carry them ! yes, I know, what the duck, as an exclusive dealer in Jordan, they absolutely should have them.

The Toyota repair manual often tells you to measure the bolts after removal, and replace them if they are out of spec — a classic sign of TTY design, even if not spelled out.

The process

Removing the spark plugs

Getting started with a big surprise !

I started by removing the spark plugs, like you normally would, and to my surprise, those brand new spark plugs (Less than 5000 KMs) are broken, and the ones that were broken are not even the ones where the head gasket leaked into ! Here is more about the failing spark plugs

The following is a result of me checking the right way to flush my engine of contaminated coolant in my 2014 prius, but it applies equally to modern Toyotas. my coolant was contaminated due to a blown head gasket !

The lowdown: fill it with distilled water, use it for a day in light traffic (Don’t let the water sit, you have to fill it and use it for a day, if the weather is hot, you should not stress it as water has less cooling capacity), then, flush as much as you can from those 6.5 liters of distilled watter, and once you have removed 5 or more liters, fill it up with SLLC (Not a drop of LLC is allowed)

The coolant from Toyota for modern cars (2004+) is super expensive ($21 for every 2L), my 2014 Prius for example has 10 liters of coolant in both engine and inverter loops, that would set me back around $100,

The coolant suitable for such new cars is called the SLLC (Super long life coolant), it comes premixed 50/50 (With distilled water)

Can i mix SLLC with the older LLC ?

You certainly can not ! they are chemically incompatible, You are not free to mix and match.

SLLC is compatible with both inverter and aluminum engine cooling systems, LLC is not, they have different chemical formulations and should not mix in any way. here is what is given by Toyota in the MSDS documents, obviously done by Toyota in a way to keep it ambiguous and keep others from copying the formulation

Long Life (LLC)	Super Long Life (SLLC)
Ethylene Glycol 107-21-1. 87% – 95%	Ethylene Glycol 107-21-1. 45% – 50%
Diethylene Glycol 111-46-6. Less than 5%
Hydrated inorganic acid, organic acid salts. Less than 5%	Hydrated inorganic acid, organic acid salts. Less than 5%
Water. Less than 5%	Water. Less than 45% – 50%
	Bittering agent (Trace amounts)
NOTES:	NOTES: This is P-OAT chemistry. OAT = Organic Acid Technology “P-OAT” or “Phosphated OAT”

So what alternative coolants can be used ?

The coolant compatible with your aluminum engine is a P-OAT, which in Toyota terms is called the super long life, if you find the brands “AISIN or Zerex”, that is the OEM for the SLLC, as for the LLC the OEM is probably castle, As they have a product that comes in an identical container, but that is not definitive proof.

Things you DON’T need to know
LLC *(The one you should not use on modern cars) is not premixed, you add 50% distilled water, but this is for older vehicles.

From other posts like this one, I seem to always be complaining about the 209 E200 W211, The thing i never mentioned is that I have an even older Mercedes E200, A W124 that has been parked for 8 years and decided just now to revive it.

for one, there is a water leak in the cooling system, for another, it has no gas in it, and the fuel pump is not working !

I recall from 8 years ago someone telling me “I can smell gas” While the car was parked near us ! So i am guessing, there is a small leak that is leaking out the gas

Not long before it got parked (8 years ago), the car had a serious leak (Leaked a full tank in a day) and I had to change the hose that connected the fuel tank to the fuel pump that is under the car !

Here are the specs, and this is post is all about how I plan to bring this car to life in a few days !

My Mercedes 200 E (W124 – E200)

• Transmission: 5 Speed manual transmission
• Engine: 111.940 (Wikipedia) (Check if part is 111 010 8700 on xentry/das)
• It has that different looking steering wheel and shifter, If i recall right, this variant’s name has the word sport in it (probably sports line), but I am not sure what it was called exactly, I recall this info because I had to get the steering wheel shipped from Poland as no used or new parts dealer has ever seen it before

Diagnostics/OBD2

Well, this 1994 E does have a diagnostics port, but it is nothing like OBD2 (It is OBD1 not 2), it is very easy to read, just connect any LED (use a 12V LED, or adapt an LED for 12V with resistors obviously).

The 16 pin connector can be accessed with banana plugs connecting the LED to the flowing

Pin-3 = ECU (BLINK… LED+Button)
Pin-6 = K-line (BLINK… LED+Button) (Ex: VAG-COM USB reader)
Pin-1 = GND
pin-16 = 12V

The users manual does not go into sufficient detail concerning the (HFM Sequential Multiport Fuel Injection/Ignition System (HFM-SFI))

The OBD plug can be accessed with a scan tool (Ex: HfmScan) using the diagram below, if you insist on going into that rabbit hole, there are adapters (OBD2 to banana) like the one you see here, which connects the OBD connector to the following pins (OBD breakout cable 4 colours)

Now, I prefer using the LED method

Degrading wires (Mercedes and Porsche !)

Why I think claiming that the degrading wires were “intentionally installed for easier recycling” is a bullshit attempt to cover Mercedes benz’s unforgivable failure on those models

• Having an arcing wire right next to the fuel pump is an even worse failure than the failing to predict that the wires will bio degrade
• Giving a rust insurance of 30 years, and having the wires degrade after 10 ? doesn’t make any sense, You are implicitly telling the consumer you are expecting the car to live for 30 years, having its cables degrade starting after 10 years with the most dangerous ones, and eventually degrading to the extent that fixing it is not feasible contradicts the assumption of expected longevity !
• Assuming the above is not correct in the sense that not all wires degrade, only those exposed to heat etc… defeats the purpose they claim the wires were scheduled to degrade for

To revisit

When your primary concern is getting it to run, you will come across stuff that needs attention after, here is a small list

• The wires to the fuel pump need shrink wraps
• Distilled water to be swapped with antifreeze

Shopping list

I don’t think this will be a long list, but I am mentioning what I needed here so that if you are in a similar situation, this might remind you of what you might need

• Both kinds of polish compounds
• Retouch paint, and application thingie
• Thinner (To clean spray gun after)
• Clear coat
• Clean, lint free cotton
• Masking paper
• Electrician’s tape
• Gasoline ! since it probably evaporated
• A 12V tester (Usually in the form of a screw driver with a wire hanging out from the back to go to ground/Negative)
• A 12V car battery (The one in the car is 100% toast)
• Distilled water for the radiator (Add antifreeze later)

The list of questions and information will probably continue to grow until i end up buying a new electric car, so i will keep updating this list as i find out more about this car.

I am thinking of getting the Toyota BZ4X, So I will be posting my findings here, the order of the questions is counter intuitive, because I always prefer to start at the place that branches most

– Is the Toyota BZ4x exactly the same as the Subaru Solterra ?

• All the research up to now says they are identical, but i have not been able to validate this conclusion yet

– Which diagnostics software does the car use ?

Why so early with this question ? because the upcoming questions need to adapt to answer this one which provides better questions down the line !

On the Toyota Techstream website, there is a claim that Version 18 works with the BZ4X, I will test this in person hopefully today.

– The BZ4X sold in china is made by GAC MOTOR (FAW no longer makes them), while the one sold in north america is made in Japan, are those cars exactly the same ?

My research up to this point says they should be, but I can’t seem to find any differences besides the battery size

– Cars sharing the e-TNGA platform share what exactly ?

Electric motor location, driver positioning, and battery width are fixed between all the models that will use this platform (Toyota, Subaru, Suzuki, Daihatsu, and possibly mazda)! Number of batteries, Wheelbase, and anything not mentioned in the fixed list can probably be different

– Maintenance and possible pitfalls

To begin with, I still drive a Nissan Leaf 2014, with over 100K Kilometers on it, and 10 bars of battery health, the car has paid for itself over the past few years (Before the most recent electricity hike in Jordan)

So, because one point leads to the other, going through the 3 points above in the counter intuitive direction (In reverse) makes more sense

The mnost common OBD2 adapter used with Toyota techstream is a $20 clone of the XHORSE brand adapter

This adapter is slow to say the least, So i will be comparing it to the Godiag adapter in terms of speed and functionality since they both can work on techstream, and they are priced almost the same.

In linux, the adapter has the IDs (0403:6001), which is naturally the UART side of the adapter, the complete lsusb line is

Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 Serial (UART) IC

To pass this to virtual machines, a file needs to be made , so create the file ““/etc/libvirt/qemu/usb/xhorseclone.xml”

<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='usb' managed='yes'>
    <source>
        <vendor id='0x0403'/>
        <product id='0x6001'/>
    </source>
</hostdev>

This way, we can attach and detach this device to the virtual machine with the commands

virsh attach-device toyota --file /etc/libvirt/qemu/usb/xhorseclone.xml --current
virsh detach-device toyota --file /etc/libvirt/qemu/usb/xhorseclone.xml --current

My $25 GoDiag GD101 Nano showed up in the mail yesterday, Acording to the seller, it has functionality similar to Tactrix Openport 2.0, but we are yet to test this theory

Planning to test the tool with a bunch of software and post results here

Since the tool makes no claim about being compatible with Mercedes xentry passthrough, I will be starting there (Verified, Works well with Xentry/DAS, Speed is not bad, no special setup required besides installing the driver)

as soon as I plug in the godiag USB, windows 10 Added USB Serial Device (COM 3) at 9600bps, 8 data bits, and 1 stop bit, while Linux (lsusb) returned “Bus 003 Device 005: ID e327:2534 NATIONS N32G43x Port”, again, this is probably just the UART adapter, and has nothing to do with what to expect in terms of functionality

To begin with, I will be installing everything in a KVM machine, and passing the godiag device to it with the following file “/etc/libvirt/qemu/usb/godiag.xml”

<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='usb' managed='yes'>
    <source>
        <vendor id='0xe327'/>
        <product id='0x2534'/>
    </source>
</hostdev>

Then, I can attach/detach the device with

virsh attach-device mercedes --file /etc/libvirt/qemu/usb/godiag.xml --current
virsh detach-device mercedes --file /etc/libvirt/qemu/usb/godiag.xml --current

First, If you are here to research before you buy, the post explaining everything not specific, but applies to VW is here.

VW- group cars include Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, MAN, Lamborghini, and Bugatti, all those vehicles use the same VW diagnostics software.

The software for VW cars is called ODIS and comes in 2 flavors, Service and Engineering (ODIS-S, and ODIS-E)

You don’t need all of the hardware to run the ODIS system as any windows based machine should replace most parts of the station, What you will need is a VCI pass-thru device.

In fact, you don’t need the original hardware at all for that purpose, Your laptop and a cheap passthrough device should do, for example, the GODIAG GD101 is a $20 passthrough piece that works with VWs own software

Legend:
Red = Complete system
Green = VCI passthrough plug

• VAS5052A (Computer)
• VAS5054 (VAS5052A) (VCI, OKI Chip, Bluetooth)
• VAS5054A (VAS5052A) (VCI, OKI Chip, Bluetooth)
• VAS6150B
• VAS 6154A (Like B but different wifi chip)
• VAS 6154B (VCI, ODIS-S 23.0.0 and newer only)
• VAS6160A (VAS 6160 (Newer vehicles), VAS 5051 (Older vehicles), VAS 5052 (non-brand vehicles), VAS 5052A)
• VAS6160C
• VAS6150E-NV
• VAS6150F (VAS6154B)
• VAS6150F-NV

This special CAN BUS hardware (https://cantact.io/cantact/users-guide.html) is very nice in the sense that it lends itself to many possibilities, and this is why I am creating this separate post about it.

An alternative board is the https://canable.io/ board, but I will stick to the board I own for this post

The standard firmware for my Cantact is candlelight available at linklayer/candleLight_fw, And there is a firmware here (https://github.com/HubertD/candleLight), the official users manual page is here (https://cantact.io/) and here (https://github.com/linklayer/cantact-book)

Linklayer also provides some very nice tools such as (https://github.com/linklayer/cantact-app)

Now, with that out of the way, let us take a look at the board itself

microcontroller

etching reads…

stm32f
042CbTb
GH238 93
CHN 708

Which tells us that the microcontroller is an STM32, A great choice for such a device (See the wikipedia article linked)

On linux, can-utils is a great tool for this thing

I actually made a 3D model casing that fits the board perfectly, I will post it here when i find it

This is a list of software and hardware that are relevant to repairing and parts of cars and trucks

Terms and concepts

Obviously, all of this is missing many details that are mostly irrelevant to why you are reading this post, You are probably here to figure out what tools you will need, and that is what I will focus on.

• PID: Parameter IDs: The test software sends IDs and expects error codes or information in return, Some IDs are mandated by the state, other IDs are specific to a manufacturer.
• response (Ex: Error) codes: Just like the PIDs (The questions- sent by the testing instruments), some responses are mandatory standards and others are manufacturer or car specific.
• J1979: A standard set of PID/Response codes of which many are mandatory for all vehicles mostly for emissions regulations purposes
• J1962: A standard for the hardware connector plug you can see under your instrument panel (Under your dash, in the footwell), formally named The DLC (Data link connector), Starting 1996, the OBD-II (OBD2) connector with both its variants (OBDII-A for 12V and OBDII-B for 24V) should be available for all cars sold in the US. Although it is now universal, some cars in other parts of the world didn’t get them until a few years later.
• ELM327 command protocol:
• J2534: THE TOOL, A tool that supports the J2534 standard should be able to speak to the vehicle in all of the following protocols (ISO9141, ISO14230 (KWP2000), J1850, CAN (ISO11898), ISO15765, SAE J2610, and J1939 (2005+))

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