Forums

hi guys,  my son drowned his Hilux in 4 feet of water a week ago. (note car has a snorkel) I stripped out the alternator, starter motor, PCM and Turbo Wastegate controller, drained oil, removed filter and replaced, as well as went around the lower part of the engine disconnecting and learning electrical connectors. I went through both fuse boxes (one under hood, second fuse box underneath steering wheel, and also disconnected cleaned and reconnected plugs all around the inside of the cab. We charged up the battery, gave the engine a 720 degree hand crank with a socket on the harmonic balancer to ensure it wasn't hydro locked pulled the exhaust immediately after the turbo to check no water had come up the bum and into the turbo removed and checked airbox and flexible turbo intake piping checked there was no water ingress through the intercooler   After all of the above, we hit that start key and she fired up immediately. I then immediately shut it off to check a few connectors and see if any error codes were registering still on the ODB port...I cleared them.   Thats when all the trouble began...   The car wouldn't start after this.   We removed battery and put it back on charge and left it for the night.   Next day, installed battery, turned the key...she fired up immediately. 30 seconds later it shutdown again...then refused to start.   I removed battery, left it for an hour whilst mucking around with a few connectors and cleaning...plugged in battery again and voila....started back up again. Ran for about 30 seconds then shutdown refusing to restart again.   Its the exact same thing over and over again.   The ODB reader gives at least 2 error codes consistently 1. Barometric pressure in the manifold error 2. Turbo wastgate low voltage   (I obtained another turbo wastegate controller however this had made no difference to the turbo error code)   I am not convinced that the turbo or the barometric pressure are necessarily what is causing it to shutdown. Is it possible that water has somehow gotten into something related to the factory ignition disable system and is causing this?   Ideas?    

I had better finish off my saga because it definitely didn't end with the installation of the new (2nd hand) pump. I tested the new pump before installation and it worked fine.  I installed the pump and reinstalled the tank.  Knowing that the sub tank was full and the main tank was near empty, I expected the turning on of the ignition would have got the pump pumping.  It didn't.  I remove the relay that operates the sub-tank pump and it tested ok.  I eventually worked out that there was no earth connection to the relay coil.  There was +12V to socket for the other side of the relay coil and +12V at the terminal socket which connects to the pump when the relay closes.  I connected a temporary earth to the earth side of the coil (using a fine piece of telephone cable wire which can be slipped into the socket before the relay is reinstalled) and the pump ran.  I had previously identified this problem but concluded that the computer must control both the + side and the earth side of the relay coil, although I couldn't see why it would do this.  My problem was that the the pump problem didn't always occur.  If the gauge got to below a quarter and the fuel light didn't begin flashing, I could assume that the sub tank was near empty.  But, sometimes the fuel light would commence flashing once the gauge got to 1/4 full and  I knew that I had about 40km to go before empty.  So, the new pump was behaving like the old pump and the problem must not be the pump. Fed up, I removed the relay, made up 4 short (4") leads with a spade on one end and a spade socket on the other end and connected the relay remotely.  This then allowed me to connect another wire to the earth lead for the relay and take it to earth via a waterproof switch.  If and when the fuel light starts flashing again, I will stop and switch on the switch to pump the contents of the sub-tank into the main tank. On reflection, this has probably been my problem all along and there was probably nothing wrong with the original pump (I convinced myself after reading about all the others who had had this problem that the electrical connection in the main tank had become high resistance and melted the fitting).   I have not heard of anyone else who has diagnosed this to be the problem.  I will post a photo of my fix later.

I have a hoist so height wasn't an issue.  But, if you run the rear wheels up onto ramps, you shouldn't have a problem.  Remember, it is a 2-man job - one to support the tank and the other to connect the various pipes.  Take a few photos of the pipe layouts before you remove them.

Geoff,  Are you able to let me know how far / high you had to get your car into the air to successfully drop the tank? I guess my next step will depend on that distance.  Hope everything goes well for you when you are tackling it. Thanks

Do I need to update the alternator if I put a DCDC charger to charge auxillory battery?