Driving home from getting the inspection, the car stalled on the highway. Luckily, I was able to coast to where there was a break-down lane. I scanned for codes with my Scangauge II and it showed an old code for a Crankshaft Position Sensor Circuit Malfunction, but didn’t have any active codes. I tried cranking the engine and got nothing. Since I still had the old spark plugs in the trunk, I hooked one up to the wires and noticed that I didn’t have any spark, which was puzzling – must be an electrical issue. I gave the car a few minutes and it started back up. There is a Toyota dealership between my house and work, so I stopped in there on my way and had them take a quick look at it. The service tech looked under the hood and said that it is probably due to the coil pack since there appeared to be a little oil leaking from the valve cover gasket down that side of the engine. I asked him to quote for the repairs and, needless to say, decided I could fix it much cheaper myself. I stopped by AutoZone and picked up a new valve cover gasket along with the spark plug tube seals. They didn’t have any coil packs in stock, so I ordered them online when I got the car home. (The way these 4cyl Camry motors work is that they have two coil packs, each for two cylinders; each pack fires for each of the cylinders, so one spark is wasted on each cylinder for every cycle.) I drove my truck for a few days and spent the next weekend fixing the Camry. Since I had the valve cover off anyway, I decided to clean it up a bit; I also installed a new PCV valve and grommet. I sanded it down and hit it with a few coats of Duplicolor Graphite Wheel Paint which I had left over from painting a set of wheels from my Volvo. I replaced the seals and installed the new coil packs. At the same time, I decided to run a can of AMSOIL power foam through the intake since the cars idle isn’t very stable. Here is the finished product, which I think turned out pretty well:
Driving to work on Monday, everything seemed to be running well, until I was almost at work and let off the throttle for a red light. The car stalled and – you guessed it – no spark again. Giving it a few minutes, it started back up and I was able to make it to work. On the way home, I stopped at the Toyota dealership and let them know that they misdiagnosed the problem. Since I had paid them for the previous diagnosis, they said that they would do it again for free. They came back and said that the car would need a new ECM (Engine Control Module) as there seemed to be a miscommunication between the crank sensor and the module. The price for a new one was around $1000, so I decided to once again try to do the work myself. I found one on eBay which had the same part numbers and was guaranteed for around $100. I received it a couple days later and installed it that night. I drove the Camry to work the next day to only have the same problem occur in almost the same exact spot. As before, I was able to make it to work, but on the way home, the car stalled 4 times. Luckily it was Friday and the weather forecast didn’t have snow so I spent Saturday going through all of the troubleshooting steps in the Haynes Manual. I found out that the Coolant Temperature sensor was reading out of spec, so I replaced that. I also found that at some point, someone had cut the wiring harness going to the Crankshaft Position Sensor, and the wires had been twisted and electrical taped. I took this apart and ran new shielded wiring to the sensor. The previous cut was right beside the alternator so I am under the assumption that the heat from the motor as well as the interference from the magnetic field of the alternator probably was giving me my intermittent issues.
To make a long story even longer, replacing the coolant temperature sensor and re-wiring the crank position sensor were the answer. The car went a few weeks with no issues at all. I then started to think about ways I can improve the fuel economy. I had been getting around 28MPG mixed city/highway on winter gas and my goal is for 35. The front emblem was broken so I decided to do a quick-fix for the front grille. I took an old thermal undershirt I had and stretched it over the grille. Here are the results, so far, 3 months and no issues, though I will have to see if it poses overheating problems this summer:
