Huge power loss and black smoke since timing belt change

[Byzii]

Hey guys,

First time posting but have been lurking for quite a while in here, great forum!

Anyway, I'm having a big problem with my 2004 Avensis Estate with 1CD-FTV engine. Got my timing belt and water pump changed some two weeks ago. When I got home that day I noticed that the engine shaked a bit more than it used to. Nothing too major but the shaking could be felt in the brake pedal when you couldn't feel a thing before. I thought that it's nothing too bad so drove it for a few days with no problems.

Well, one nice evening driving home and car has no power, I'm talking barely able to pull away from the stop light. I had a problem with leaky radiator a few months ago and when the coolant level went too low the car would go into what I think was limp mode. This power loss was quite similar.

Any way, to make a long story short, since that day the power loss is constant, it doesn't go on and off, but here's the kicker — it happens only when engine is fully warmed up.

There's no power loss or black smoke when engine is cold or halfway to being warmed up. But once engine is fully warm, here comes the power and black smoke from the exhaust.

The black smoke isn't very bad, not like a thick cloud of it, but you can see it and it's even better if someone is driving behind me, the smoke is seen very well in headlight lights.

Smoke disappears only when I've reached the cruise speed, and even then sometimes it's there a bit. But when trying to gain speed, the smoke is coming out constantly.

 

Now here's another detail that might help resolve the issue. I've noticed this chirping sound from the scv valve area seen in the linked video here: 

The sound can be heard at the very start and then comes at around 18 to 19 second mark.

This video was with car completely idle, and cold, and so far this incident has been an outlier. With the chirping sound came a huge engine and exhaust pipe shaking, and a bit of constant black smoke.

I haven't had an incident like that BUT I can recreate that chirping sound when just pushing the engine to 2000 RPM in neutral. If I push it to 2k the sound just stays there with no variation.

 

Is it possible that during the timing belt change something was either unplugged or removed and wasn't put back quite correctly? Or is something shot and it's just a coincidence that this happens after the belt change? Mechanic said something about removing the water pump being a major PITA because he needed to remove some other component, but I can't recall what it was.

 

Planning to bring the car to a guy who specializes in diagnostics but would love to hear your opinions since this might be something Toyota specific.

 

Thank you guys.

[Mooly]

No idea on the noise I'm afraid, but I would say that I don't believe in coincidences with things like this. If everything was 100% OK up to the belt replacement then my first thought would be that the belt is misaligned, perhaps timing is out by a tooth, or perhaps the belt is slack for some reason and affecting injector pump timing.

[yossarian247]

I would guess at the timing being slightly out too. Although the injector pump does not normally need to be timed on a common rail diesel engine it may be that the cam timing is slightly out in relation to the crankshaft. 

[Colourd]

Hello

Wise words above

Imho, check for gummed up - sticking EGR too

EGR is such a crap idea

The other noise sounds like a bearing to me, was the tensioner bearing done  ?

[Byzii]

Thank you for your opinions!

Now I'm afraid to drive the car the 15km it would take to bring it to service shop, damn. But how would the incorrect timing and/or bad tensioner bearing only show itself when engine is up to temp?

For the job they ordered Gates timing belt kit which included waterpump and tensioner, but I have no idea about the tensioner bearing.

 

Starting to suspect the EGR too since it doesn't start operating until thermostat is open but got confused about the chirping sound.

[Colourd]

9 minutes ago, Byzii said:

Thank you for your opinions!

Now I'm afraid to drive the car the 15km it would take to bring it to service shop, damn. But how would the incorrect timing and/or bad tensioner bearing only show itself when engine is up to temp?

For the job they ordered Gates timing belt kit which included waterpump and tensioner, but I have no idea about the tensioner bearing.

 

Starting to suspect the EGR too since it doesn't start operating until thermostat is open but got confused about the chirping sound.

Is this place who carried out this work trusted honest establishment ? you've used before ?

Did they have / install the complete kit ?

Imho, I'm no expert, shaking suggests, incorrect timing or injector - possibly faulty

Has yoru coolant loss issue been cured or any warning lights, temp gauge normal ?

 

[Byzii]

Yeah, I've been using them for quite some time and they're great guys, also very good reviews throughout.

The complete kit was installed.

 

And the radiator issue was resolved. Turned out to be a leaky radiator which was replaced and no issue since then.

[Colourd]

Thats good to know

Therefore, maybe best to consult them about your current symptoms, which may or ,may not be related, could be coincidental

 

[Byzii]

Yeah, will consult with them but also trying to get a second opinion and maybe someone else had dealt with an issue like this and could suggest an easy fix. Sometimes it's the dumbest things like a connector or a pipe not sitting quite snuggly.

 

Also maybe there's more information about what exactly needs to be removed in order to swap the waterpump? I have a service manual for my car but there isn't an exact manual for timing belt and waterpump job. The guys I go to are great but don't deal with many Japanese cars so maybe if the wrong thing was removed it could cause the fuel system to get screwed.

[Mike169]

Hi and bad luck! Personally I wouldn't worry about it and just get it back to the garage and let them sort it out because it's not your problem to fix it. If you are worried about driving it drive it say a mile from your house, you said the car is drivable when cold, and get the AA or RAC to transport it to the garage for you. (if you don't have recovery from your house, not everybody does) Mike.

[Byzii]

Hey guys,

Got a hold of the service manual for the car and noticed that in order to remove the waterpump, the injector driver needs to be removed and also fuel pump assy gets a fair amount of attention. Is there something that could've gone wrong and causes the symptoms? I'm confused mostly about the fact that issues arise when car is up to temp.

[Byzii]

Hey guys,

A little status update if anyone is still following or stumbles across this thread in the future.

I cleaned my EGR valve a couple of days ago and since refitting it yesterday I haven't had a power loss and black smoke event (knocks on wood).

In order to get the valve off I had to remove the air filter box (easy, 3 screws holding it). Then remove the two coolant tubes from the valve. The one on the right side was full with coolant so I only undid it on valve side, not engine side. Then it's two nuts on the sides and one screw on the bottom which is a little bit hard to get to but nothing impossible with the thingy that let's your socket move in any direction, like a u joint.

 

Cleaned the valve with carburetor cleaner, turned it upside down, leveled it and filled both holes with the cleaner, then brushed with a used toothbrush, then filled it again. Don't forget to turn the actuator thingy, it spins freely and it's good to clean the stem from all sides.

[Mooly]

Thanks for updating the thread... and great to hear you seem to have fixed the problem.  A very strange coincidence all things considered, but a good outcome non the less.

[Byzii]

Hey, actually forgot to mention that the noise from the video is still present so that's still something to fix. Really does sound like bearing and the engine sometimes (mostly when cold) starts sounding very rough and whole engine looks like it's about to jump out of the car. RPMs don't change though and it lasts maybe 3 seconds.

Taking the car to a Toyota guy so maybe will get some answers.

[Colourd]

On 7/12/2018 at 5:48 PM, Byzii said:

Hey guys,

A little status update if anyone is still following or stumbles across this thread in the future.

I cleaned my EGR valve a couple of days ago and since refitting it yesterday I haven't had a power loss and black smoke event (knocks on wood).

In order to get the valve off I had to remove the air filter box (easy, 3 screws holding it). Then remove the two coolant tubes from the valve. The one on the right side was full with coolant so I only undid it on valve side, not engine side. Then it's two nuts on the sides and one screw on the bottom which is a little bit hard to get to but nothing impossible with the thingy that let's your socket move in any direction, like a u joint.

 

Cleaned the valve with carburetor cleaner, turned it upside down, leveled it and filled both holes with the cleaner, then brushed with a used toothbrush, then filled it again. Don't forget to turn the actuator thingy, it spins freely and it's good to clean the stem from all sides.

At least some good news 🙂

[Byzii]

Well brought my car to a garage today where they specialize in Toyotas. Ran the car through various tests in the diagnostic software, checked all injectors by shutting them off one at a time, all in all took probably 20 minutes just to conclude that everything that has got to do with ecu and engine control is fine.

 

For a reminder, I fixed the power loss by cleaning out the EGR but I still failed at emissions test with a result more than 3 times the maximum allowed. Since then I'm driving the car more dynamically i.e. shifting at around 3.5k RPMs and so on, and still every time I push it, say, over 4k RPMs there's some smoke coming out. That means that when I rev the engine until the limiter (that's what they do for emissions test — 2 seconds full throttle on redline) there will be huge smoke again.

 

Guy at the shop said he's kind of baffled since it's not adding up. The power of the car is fine so I guess it'll be a hard battle to figure out what causes the huge emissions while also not affecting power, fuel economy and not going through oil.

[Colourd]

Hmm, maybe clogged up intake somewhere - possibly intake manifold ?

Does it go well ?

[revband]

Take it down an open road in a lower gear and drive it around 4000 revs for two or three miles to give it a good "Italian tune up" it often works wonders on a clogged diesel?.

[Byzii]

1 hour ago, revband said:

Take it down an open road in a lower gear and drive it around 4000 revs for two or three miles to give it a good "Italian tune up" it often works wonders on a clogged diesel?.

Yeah, I was thinking about that but: a) is is okay to do that with a 300k km engine? I'm bringing it to roughly 4k before shifting but I was always told it's okay to rev it high when accelerating but not okay when just cruising, and b) I drive quite aggressively these past few days once engine coolant hits 85°C  but before that I shift around 2k revs so next gear is around 1.4k revs. I drive it like that for 25 minutes or so and then I start revving it high and the first few accels smoke comes out. Not too much but still.

I know it's hard to get what I'm saying but I was just wondering is it normal that so much stuff collects while driving gently for 25 minutes that as soon as I rev it harder there's smoke? That would indicate that something's not working as it should if stuff collects this fast.

[revband]

These engines are very durable, the weak part at higher miles/km's is the timing belt, that has been replaced.

[RollaDriver]

Hi Byzii,

Did you manage to get to the bottom of this?  

I am having a similiar problem with my 1CD-FTV 2005 avensis. Black smoke while accelerating and going up hill, the car behind car see the smoke while accelerating. EGR valve, throttle body and intake manifold has been cleaned. Tried a working MAF sensor and turbo boost solinoid from a working car but hasnt resolved the issue of black smoke.

Is there something else that could be the issue?

On 7/19/2018 at 7:29 PM, Byzii said:

Yeah, I was thinking about that but: a) is is okay to do that with a 300k km engine? I'm bringing it to roughly 4k before shifting but I was always told it's okay to rev it high when accelerating but not okay when just cruising, and b) I drive quite aggressively these past few days once engine coolant hits 85°C  but before that I shift around 2k revs so next gear is around 1.4k revs. I drive it like that for 25 minutes or so and then I start revving it high and the first few accels smoke comes out. Not too much but still.

I know it's hard to get what I'm saying but I was just wondering is it normal that so much stuff collects while driving gently for 25 minutes that as soon as I rev it harder there's smoke? That would indicate that something's not working as it should if stuff collects this fast.