Gents,

This is on my new-to-me '07 Sequoia 4.7. I was checking plugs and the repair sleeve--not a heli-coil--came out along with the plug. The truck was not in a place where I could leave it. I got the sleeve/plug back in place. She started and ran fine (given the CELs I'm fighting), and I moved her to her usual parking spot.

How are these sleeves held in place? When I heli-coil my front TSE caliper brackets, I use red loctite.

What should I do next? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

poormxdad

 

I always thought repair inserts were mechanically locked in place but here’s a good article on using loctite: Thread locker on spark plug repair inserts . Good luck.

 

The threads in the head are obviously fine or I wouldn't have been able to get the failed insert back in. That means the worst part is behind me.

Can someone recommend a specific company's tool they've had good luck with. NAPA has several. So does Amazon.

My main concern is that the different manufacturers would have inserts with different dimensions. That means I need too identify the insert that's in there now, which requires I remove it again...

Thanks,

 

You could try double nutting it to remove it from the plug. There are many different types of inserts, timeserts, helicoil etc. It is supposed to have some type of locking feature. Interference thread fit, locking pins, interference fit shoulder with matching counterbore or a knurled shoulder. I would remove it and reinstall it with some red loctite. The service life for spark plugs on stock NA vehicles is long.

 

My local hardware store didn't have nuts that fit for me try to to separate them myself, so I'm going to take the plug and sleeve to my local machine shop tomorrow.

Let's say I reuse said sleeve. I need to know that the plug will come out of the sleeve before I loctite the sleeve in place. It would suck if whomever put the loctite on the plug instead of the sleeve when they did the repair. If that's what happened, I'll need to identify that sleeve so I can procure another one.

How would I go about putting it back in? Use a new spark plug, so new washer? More than one washer?

 

Could use a bolt and nut to use as an installer. A little antiseize on the bolt threads and tighten the nut against the insert. Install, loosen the nut and the bolt should come right out.

If not use a new plug with some antiseize, which might be a lot less difficult. You might consider installing the old plug with insert and warm up the engine a little first. Then remove the insert from the plug and install the insert/new plug with red loctite on the insert threads. Make sure the heads threads and outside of the insert are cleaned with some brake clean.

 

I wanted to follow up on this…

I took the plug/sleeve to Apple’s Machine Shop in Yorktown. A very helpful young man identified the sleeve right away. I told him my situation, and he spent 10 minutes or so walking me through what I needed to do.

First he got out his tool box full of thread repair and other goodies and showed me what I needed. Then called the local Advance Auto to see if they had the repair kit. They did not, so he pulled it up on Amazon. It’s a HeliCoil brand Save-A-Thread repair kit. He strongly recommended against re-using the sleeve, or using red Loctite, and he told me to use a new plug. He said the repeated getting hot then getting cold eventually destroys the Loctite.

He gave me a tutorial on installing the sleeve and then using the tool to lock it in place. I gave him twenty bucks and told him to get himself lunch.

I later went to York Bolt to get two nuts to see if I could separate the sleeve from the plug. I really wanted to know if the plug had been loctited in the sleeve. York Bolt has everything, but didn’t have what I needed. The guy that helped me mic’d the outside of the sleeve at 16.9mm, and said he’d never heard of a bolt (nut) that size. I asked if it could be SAE, but it didn’t fit any common fraction. I believe the young man at Apple’s knew he didn’t have the technology to get that sleeve off.

The price for the repair kit I needed was the same at my local O’Reilly’s as it was on Amazon, so I ordered from it from O’Reilly’s.

I'll report back when I have time to do the install.

 

17mm thread which is not overly common. There would be no reason to loctite the plug into the insert. Originally not knowing which insert it was is why I recommended reusing it. That and cost for a kit. Install a new one is probably the best solution. The service life is very long on spark plugs, you may not have to remove it again.

 

You've got some determination. I'd be threading that sleeve onto a new plug and torquing it down, that'll get it way past it's lifespan.

 

Gents,

I've gotten really good advice here for years. Here's another question about my new-to-me '07 Sequoia. I don't want to start a new thread since she's not a Miata.

I found her at a dealer in Houston. 164k, no rust, nice paint and interior. I had it shipped, sight unseen. I believe she was a victim of catalytic converter theft. The exhaust system is a crime scene. The downtubes are welded to the exhaust manifolds. Two small aftermarket cats were installed.




Do I need the O2 sensor extenders? Seems like they shouldn't be there, but they may be needed because the wiring loom is too short. Another thing for me to do...

Any words of wit would be greatly appreciated.

 

Spacers or mini cats are used to make in-efficient cats pass emissions. Well, fools the ECU to allow it to pass emissions anyways. Either cats were stolen or OE cats are built into the headers and extremely expensive, so a cheaper route was taken.

 

^^^ Very much likely to be the case. If it passes smog as-is, leave it alone. I had to do the same to my Expedition when the dealer-installed O'Reilly specials were throwing P0420/P0430 codes on both banks. Dealer did not want to spend $2k on OEM cats, and neither do I.

 

I'm getting the P0420 and P0430 codes now. I don't have to pass an emissions test here. The truck seems to run fine, but when the CEL lights up, it cuts out the traction control features, so the dash looks like a Christmas tree.

Would it not throw the codes if I were to remove the sensor extenders?

Thanks,

 

It will still throw the codes unless there is a leak around the extenders, likely more frequently than it does now. Taking the downstream sensor directly out of the exhaust stream is usually pretty effective in reducing measured readings.

 

Sure he did. He has a lathe, with that he can turn a piece of bar stock into a custom nut the right size for the threads. It just would have cost you about fifty times more than buying another thread insert sleeve, so there was no reason to do it.

As far as the cats go, unfortunately there's no way to fix it properly without sourcing new OEM-style cats, which are presumably expensive enough to have caused the previous owner to go with this band-aid hack job in the first place and then sell the vehicle when it didn't work. :(

--Ian

 

I knew the cats were aftermarket. I did not know about the downtubes being welded to the manifolds.

Is there any point in trying better--Denso Direct Fit--downstream sensors?

Any reason why I shouldn't drive it the way it is? It seems to be running fine. The idle is smooth. Good power. However, I bought it to tow my Miata, so I'm concerned about the mixture under load.

Thanks,

 

Downstream o2 sensors are purely for monitoring catalyst efficiency, and alerting the driver to a problem with the emissions system. They do not influence the running parameters of the engine, that is all handled by the upstream sensors, provided the conditions for closed-loop operation are met.

Those codes are related to the cat’s themselves, not the sensors. Therefore it’s very unlikely that new sensors will correct the problem. It’s debatable as to if the cheapo aftermarket universal cats do much of anything to reduce emissions, but there’s a reason they are ~1/10th (or less) the cost of OEM cats.

As someone said above just removing the sensors and plugging the bungs, but leaving the downstream sensors reading the atmosphere can cure the code, as they certainly should be reading lower pollutants than what they’re expecting to see based on engine parameters, but it’s no guarantee. Since you don’t have an emissions test where you are, you could investigate a flash tune that disables the downstream sensors, I have no idea how tuneable those Toyota ECUs are though.

I find it very odd that the presence of catalytic converter efficiency codes kills all of your traction controls though, that doesn’t seem right. Are you sure there aren’t any other codes present? Maybe in the transmission or body control modules?

 

Monkeyman,

Have a Cat.

Thanks!

That makes me feel better about driving her.

Unfortunately, the traction control shenanigans appears to be a thing with these trucks. From the Tundras.com forum...

"It’s normal for Toyota vehicles with Vehicle Stability Control to illuminate the Trac and VSC lights with the CEL, at least for many engine faults.
Trac and VSC are disabled with active engine faults as they require control of the engine that may not be possible with an active fault."

 

Have you checked for other codes? Considering the quick-hack cheapie fixes we've already seen that the previous owner was a fan of, I think it's pretty likely that he might have tried to paper over a wheel speed sensor failure somehow.

--Ian

 

The TRAC and VSC lights only come on when the CEL comes on. They haven't come on by themselves.