1992 Camry 3VZ-FE rebuild!

[Petros]

you can do like most people do, and just ignore it.

[irowiki]

Depends, at the moment it is fine but at some point the ECM is supposed to retard timing to 0 degrees, has not happened yet.

[dlb]

i've never known what knock sensors did so i just looked it up. kind of neat. i would definitely replace it. i wonder where it's located on your engine, and how difficult it will be to get to. hopefully it's no big thing.

[Gottolovem]

I just read you should change the connecting wire plug first before you buy a bunch of other stuff it's often that apparently.

[irowiki]

Yeah I used two old ones that tested fine with an ohm meter, and a new sensor wiring harness.

The possibilities are bad sensor, bad wiring, it came unplugged, or the ECM is bad.

They are located under the intake manifold, beneath the coolant bypass line, between the v banks. So the plenum would need to come off too. Drain the coolant. Several hours of work and some gaskets. It isn't terrible at least.

I'm going to see how my economy pans out, before I do much.

Driving her home today

[irowiki]

Drove her home today (with the CEL), over 200 miles through three mountain passes, and we got 23.5 MPG! (EPA is 16 city 23 highway for the V6 wagon)

Temp stayed rock solid the entire way.

11010536_743325962453951_6976425679491809886_n.jpg

[irowiki]

Got the AC fixed, went on a nice 150 mile drive last night just "cause" (and we want to get the engine broken in already!)

Drives smooth, no real clunks or rattles (except for the spare tire jack). Power is great, close to the Buick I used to own. Really quiet ride too, almost no road noise! Almost feels like a new car with the new tires and struts all around even though she just rolled over 275K!

On an aside, the thermostat had this cool jiggle valve I have not seen in our Tercel thermostats, and we had zero air issues!

[Petros]

Congratulations, now you can join the ranks of "people-who-gave-up-on-owning-cool-cars-and-just-want-something-reliable". There is nothing exiting about a camry, darn good car and totally reliable, but boring.

[irowiki]

Peter, it is a Camry Wagon, so it is plenty exciting still and hardly boring! We actually have people slowing down to look at us as we drive down the road, It has been forever since I've ever seen a Camry Wagon driving down the road and I think it she makes an unique statement.

Now, the 2003 Buick Regal we had for a while, THAT was boring.

We really needed a bigger car for rear shoulder belts (booster seat), fitting the newfangled infant carrier in the car (it doesn't really fit in the Tercel) all the things you need to drag with when you have a new baby, and be able to cart around 7 people when required. We actually looked at a 1995ish Subaru Legacy wagon first (that needed an engine), it looked good but Dad suggested I stay with Toyota.

The other car we were interested in would have been an AllTrac Toyota Previa Minivan.

As far as "giving up on tercels", fear not, we're still keeping the tercels. Also don't forget we spent $450 fixing the frame when most people I know were like "just scrap it".

[irowiki]

So the rear left power window and power lock did not work. After a butt load of troubleshooting, looked like it was the wires, pulled it out and sure enough, the three wires that fed the window were broken, and the two that handled the locks were shorting together.

Redid that harness, plugged it back in for a test, and the power lock whines (I think it is shot) and the window only goes down! Reversing it with alligator clips made it go back up. Driver window button won't make the rear left window go up or down.

So looking at the driver door, the little red light that lights up when you open the door didn't work, the speaker didn't work, so we did some more testing, and decided to pull that wiring harness too.

Out of the 22 (!!) wires, two of the speaker wires, one wire going to that light, and ONE wire going to the rear left door was broken, and almost every other wire was broken and getting ready to break. Only nine of them didn't have broken insulation.

So we're redoing that wiring harness too...should have it done by Monday.

[rer233]

Ever had any of those problems with your tercels? Man do i love simple!!

[dlb]

Ever had any of those problems with your tercels? Man do i love simple!!

that's funny, i was thinking the exact same thing. power everything is nice but only until you have to repair worn out motors and damaged wires at flex points. such a PITA. i'm sure it will be nice once you get it sorted out though, paul.

[irowiki]

Ever had any of those problems with your tercels? Man do i love simple!!

Closest would be problems with the wires that go to the hatch! This is about as simple as it gets for the size we needed (OBD I for example)




It is a little of a pain but in a way I like doing it, I know the car better as a result.

[Petros]

this is a common affliction with all the modern cars, the wires get interally fatigued where it passes though the the door hinge area and at the connectors (some times the individual wires just break off at the connector from being bent back and fourth). Honda had really blown this detail on their otherwise very nice 4wd/Awd CR-V, they run all of the door locks and power window controls to the drivers arm rest (earlier models like we owned had it on the left side of the dash), and the contacts would all fatigue and break off right at this massive connector. One owner had it eventually fail all together, he could not unlock the doors or roll any of the windows down, he had to drive to the dealership with him and his family trapped inside, and honk the horn until someone came out and opened the door for them from the outside. Honda's solution is to replace the CRV whole wire harness (requiring the machanic to remove many of the body panels!) a $6000 repair. You would think they should know better. One on-line Honda forum member found where to buy the connectors/contacts that Honda uses and just rebuild the large plug at the door jamb without removing the wire harness, saved him thousands. Again you would think honda would know better but appearntly the dealer mechanic is not authorised to repair the connectors, but can only replace the whole harness.

I suggest you also take a lesson from the aircraft manufacturers, when you fix your wire bundles, add more tie wraps (cable ties) and supports to the wire bundle to lower the risk of the bundle flexing and eventually breaking the wires again. At the connector you can also add a big glob of silicone gel where all the wires come together, it will also prevent them from flexing too much but sill allow some movement. We used to do this on the race cars we built for Nissan, especially off road vehicles, the wires bundles would bounce around and get rubbed and abraded, by tying them down every 6 inches, and putting globs of silicone at the connectors, it prevented fatigue damage to the wire bundles.

good luck.

[irowiki]

Yeah I can imagine it would be an arm and a leg at Toyota to get this fixed. On the Camry at least, it goes from the door to a plug/socket right inside the A pillar/dash area (to make it easier to take the door completely off)

Got the wiring harness fixed! Action shot mid repair:



Everything is working when I did a test hookup

(except the rear driver door lock, I have a used replacement coming)