6G Celicas Forums

I'm back B%$#@s!

I just couldn't help myself, I needed to be able row through gears again; needed a project, something to do, something to cruise with w/ friends in the summer.

Somebody had posted a car on here it was a clean southern car that sale didn't happen & it just got me hooked, I needed to get back in another Celica.

I had been searching the car sales sites & found this on Jan. 18 on Craigslist in Denver, CO (had only been on there for a few days). Contacted the seller, blah, blah, blah. Flew out Feb. 3rd to pick it up. It's mine. BIG thanks to richee3 (a.k.a. Daniel) otherwise I would still be without a 6th gen.

Had an absolute blast. Beat the crap out of the car the first few hours of ownership, drove to Colorado Springs, up Pikes Peak (it's a must for any automotive enthusiast). Car rides well, even a 100mph (Denver area Colorado drivers are the worst).

So the cooling issue... Bought the car on Saturday no problems at all, really nice outside about 57degrees. Drove down to Colorado Springs then up & down Pikes Peak no issues. You can hear the fans come on when the car is at operating temp. I mean NO issues at all, we beat the piss out of the car (is smooth at 100mph). I leave Sunday morning, about 30min outside of Denver the car overheats! WTF! I pull over & check, see that the only place coolant is coming out of is the overflow tank, but the fans aren't running, weird. Check fuses, good, swap some relays, nothing. Eventually Daniel tells me unplug the radiator temp sensor, all is good, fans work, so relays are ok. Put some coolant in (not very much was lost) & on my way. I notice that the car is running a little warm but I keep going. Fill up w/ gas at Julesburg, CO get back on the road & the car seems to run a little warmer even than before, WTF. So I'm messing w/ the heater trying different things to get the temp down, I notice that when heat is turned to full cold that the temp gauge spikes, it didn't do that before. I suspect the thermostat. I get to North Platte, NE. Pull into an O'Reillys, pop over the hood and look, no leaks, but the lower radiator hose is cold! Put a new thermostat in bleed the system. Plug the fans back in & they turn on correctly, lower radiator hose gets hot. Ok cool, I get on my way temp gauge is good going down there the road. A while down the road I pull into a rest stop to check... no leaks, temp is good, but the lower radiator hose is still cold! WTF! I'm like well car hasn't blow up yet, I continue with my journey. I get home park in the garage, pop the hood lower hose still cold. I let the car run for a few minutes & the hose gets warm & the fans kick on. [Copied from our PM cheela, lol]

The car hasn't overheated yet so I'm believing the thermostat was the fix but...

Now the clutch is toasted, go figure. I've been baby-ing it when driving cause especially after 3k rpms you could feel it. But I was driving it to work 2 weeks ago on a Wednesday morning in lovely traffic, go to give it some throttle (maybe a 1/2, I dunno) in 5th & she shoots to 5k rpms & really goes no where, lol, sorry traffic. That smell is really nasty, haha.

Here is the Flickr album ... I'll try and embed photos w/ captions and/ or details later.

This post has been edited by navseal345: May 24, 2020 - 10:54 AM

OE clamps are great, dealer still sells them.

Uh? Thought drain plugs on the bottom of radiators had some sort of o-ring, oh well.

Puts car back together & adds some coolant.

Starts leaking from drain plug.

WTF!

Moves car back a little... And takes a look under car.

There you are! You Son of A B*tch!

Okay.... So... Issue returns!!

I was bleeding the cooling system, had hand on the throttle to hurry it along... Fans come on & a few seconds later the car starts stumbling & dies. Interesting. Wait less than 30 seconds, starts right up no issues. Hand on throttle to get rpms back up, fans come on... and a few seconds later car stumbles & dies. No CEL.

????

This post has been edited by navseal345: Jun 11, 2022 - 5:28 PM

So I had restarted if after letting it cool down for a few minutes... Started right back up, held throttle, fans kick on, few seconds later car stumbles again but only died after I let go of throttle.

Again let it cool for a minute or two & just let the car idle all by itself until the fans come on. Fans come on, & few seconds after car dies. It could have stumbled but since it was at idle it just died.

What a coincidence, I'm doing cooling system work too!

So it's for sure a hot issue. What we need to know is what you're not getting when it stalls or doesn't restart, but being able to duplicate the problem in the driveway is MUCH better than being on the side of the road somewhere. You're going to want 2 noid lights, a spark tester, and a multimeter handy so you can test things while it's failing when hot. Probe one noid light into the 2 wire connector to the ignition coil, the other noid light into a fuel injector, spark tester on a plug wire, and the multi-meter ready to measure resistance of the cam sensor in the distributor as well as the new ignition coil. It would be a good idea to get a fuel pressure gauge on the engine as well just to make sure it's not a pressure issue from a pump failing when hot. Not sure where's good to hook up to on the 5S.

https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-20610-Inline-S.../dp/B0002STSC6/ inline spark tester lets the engine run while seeing if there's spark.
https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-27800-Universa.../dp/B0002SR57Q/ I like and use this noid light at work, put the thick adapters on it and get a set of these probes, crimp them down just a little with pliers and they grip onto the fat adapters and let you probe more easily.
https://www.amazon.com/destructive-Probes-I.../dp/B08FFHG5HR/ probes

You can make due with one noid light as long as you're quick to re-probe things while it's acting up or don't mind making it act up multiple times, for me though time is money so getting it all looked at in one go is worth the price.

So since the 4 year old O'Reilly's special radiator cap fell apart when I removed it yesterday I went & got a new one from AutoZone, looks like a Gates brand one.

Anyways... Went through the process again. Fans come on, the first time it starts to stumble but not enough to make it die, fans come on a second time & stumbles bad enough that it died after I let off the throttle. It was on the 3rd or 4th time of stumbling that it stumbled bad enough to start flashing the CEL!! So I quickly used my little scanner to read it & it comes up with a: P0335 - Crankshaft Position Sensor A Circuit. The car died & wouldn't restart.

I'm just more excited that I was able to get a CEL outta the damn thing.

It's very possible it's a bad CKP, having a code can really cut down on fumbling around to find the problem! I'm still not clear if that ECM times ignition/fuel from the crankshaft or camshaft, the service info I have is a little vague but I think it uses the CMP for telling it when the #1 TDC is to know when the revolution starts and the CKP for measuring engine speed and position between CMP signals. Diagnostics want you to use a scope to look at the sensor waveform and compare to the expected signal from the FSM, you can kind of shortcut that by just checking it's got power and ground and then guessing and replacing it as a maybe if it's not terribly expensive. It is behind the timing belt tho....so you might be doing a timing belt job with that sensor if it is the sensor. However, some cars are kind of stupid and will set a crankshaft sensor code for a bad camshaft sensor, but I don't believe that Toyota is one of the especially stupid ones.
G is the camshaft and NE is the crankshaft.


I think the clearest solution is to just move up one year to a 2000 Celica.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Jun 12, 2022 - 4:52 PM

So driving it to work so I could work on it... Maybe it's a good it's getting worse, because I made it half way & it did it again I had to pull over because it couldn't make it. Currently letting it cool down, lucky it's not to much farther to work.

That didn't do to plan. Had to let it cool down for 2ish hours on the side of the road to drive it to the shop. I wasn't stuck on the the side of the road, went & did other things came back & made it to the shop.

Had lunch & a drink or "two" with a few friends. Had a great time. Much needed to say the least.

Basically wasn't able to work on the car. Maybe at a later date.

The more broken it gets the easier to find the problem will be and the more confident you can be in your repair.

Sure hope it goes that way, lol.

You got this!

I AM MASTER AUTOMOTIVE TECHNICIAN!!!! (I hope) JACK OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF NONE!

New crank sensor installed, all without taking the timing cover off. Ran until the fans came on a few times with high RPMs & at idle a few times no hesitation/ surging!

I FIX!!

Imma take it for a cruise, not to far from home or the shop tho, LOL.

Sounds like great news.

Best news I've seen all day today!

Yay! I hope it stays fixed for you!

Me too.


To a point kinda nervous/ scared when I drive it. Especially at a traffic light or in heavy traffic & having it crap out, it's more embarrassing I guess, lol.

yay! now swap a beams into it!

Honestly it's tempting but not right now.

If you want a good base gen2 3SGTE, I have the one I just pulled out of Stacy's car. It needs totally resealed, but it ran good.


Seriously. If you want it, I'll let it go cheap to you.