Update: Potential Culprit Found? —> 2000 LC Dies, Battery, Check Engine, AT Oil Temp Lights (1 Viewer)

[TheBestCow]

Welp. Broke the plastic on the crank sensor as well. Anyone got part number for that?

here are the results:

looks like it has been replaced before

Close up of the damage I think is causing the short/stalls:

However, further down the line, more damage:

My thinking is to cut at the yellow line below, butt splice two new wires in, attach new sensors and pigtails to the new lines, protect it with the wire loom wrap, thread everything back down by pulling gently on my weed trimmer string, and reconnect the sensors.

What I think I need:
New crank sensor with pigtail
New oil sending unit sensor with pigtail
Two ?? Gauge wires to butt splice in
Wire loom protective plastic thing

Any suggestions on where to get all of this, part numbers, what gauge of wire, etc. would be greatly appreciated. I looked at wire loom tubing last night on Amazon and the range of reviews on most of the products is disconcerting to say the least. I’d like to not do this again anytime soon so trying to avoid plastic tubing that melts at high temp etc.

Guess I’m going to learn a lot! At least got to use the heat gun to take off the blackout tint on the rear windows...

 

[2001LC]

Simple green is fine.

Best bet is call Toyota or Lexus Dealership parts dept in the morning. You can try www.partsouq.com for PN's. Punch in your VIN #.

Tip if your going to fish through proper routing. Either pull one wire housing at a time past the fan bracket. Or better, replace pigtail, and put the housing on after pulling the wires with need pigtail to locations.

 

[TheBestCow]

Simple green is fine.

Best bet is call Toyota or Lexus Dealership parts dept in the morning. You can try www.partsouq.com for PN's. Punch in your VIN #.

Tip if your going to fish through proper routing. Either pull one wire housing at a time past the fan bracket. Or better, replace pigtail, and put the housing on after pulling the wires with need pigtail to locations.

I meant I was using the trimmer wire to help guide it back the way it came.

But you make a good point of course! I could cut an extra long piece of wire loom or whatever its called, cut two extra long wires, wrap them in the loom, thread that down behind the fan bracket and down to underneath the car, attach the pigtails/housings with butt splice *under* the vehicle, pull the wire slack back up at the top a little bit so I could reattach the sensor wires, and then pull the slack up through the top, then butt splice that into the main harness. That way I’m routing only something the width of the loom and not worrying about pigtails or housings or whatever getting snagged.

Someone else’s mentioned to try plugging the wire that I accidentally yanked out from the oil sending unit housing back into it — is that possible? I guess I’m trying to understand housing vs pigtail vs entire unit etc.

Also, when looking at the photo of the oil sending unit, the black ring at the base of the connector looks like it has a little gap in it... is that a big enough concern to justify buying a new sending unit?

 

[TheBestCow]

Can someone explain something about the green cable? It appears to be a ... maybe 16 gauge, but 3 conductor wire? In one of my photos above you can see the two smaller wires going into the green cable, with another set of wire that looks like it has been clipped off. It looks like what connects to the housing is more like 18 or 20 gauge, the real thin wires, one looks to be blue and one green.

Do I need to find specific 16 gauge/3 wire, 16 gauge/2 wire (since only 2 wires are used), or would two separate 18 or 20 gauge wires work as a replacement?

I figure I can buy yellow 16 gauge for the oil sending unit wire.

The replacements I just ordered say min gauge size is 20 and max is 16, so I figure it has to be 18 or 20.

 

[jpd motorsports]

3rd wire looks to be a bare wire ( ground signal isolator? somebody might know it better. Its not connected at plug.) If you can strip back the green wire and make your splice on the 2 smaller ones, then re wrap the bare (3rd) wire around it like it is.

You can use 2 separate wires for it.

 

[2001LC]

No. I meant soldering the wire pigtails to harness first. This is while wire harness sitting on top of engine, for easy access. Then once pulled through, attach wire housing connector(s)

I suppose if to get to the factory wire (past all old splices) in the harness, it's very long. So long a splice ends up on top side of engine. You could pull up from below.

In the end, you want:
Wires as short as possible.
As few butt connections as possible.
Wire gauges as close to factory, larger if needed but not small.

If using a butt connector, to large for wire. Enlarge sheathing of wire with shrink wrap, to fit seal area of butt connected..

Again this is not the wire housing connector PN# you need. Just example!

 

[TheBestCow]

Good news:
- got everything routed back the way I think it goes
- got butt splices done and shrink wrapped
- got car restarted
- new oil sending unit housing fits the sensor

Bad news:
- oil gauge showing low/no pressure as if it were disconnected
- still dropping voltage when I kick ACs and aftermarket fog lights are on
- new crank position sensor I ordered wouldn’t fit, so had to reuse the old one with the broken tab, but it seems secure for now
- the bolts holding the ... under-engine pan to the front skid plate (or whatever it is called, it attaches to the underside of the ARB bumper) are rusty and not giving purchase when trying to reinstall, a few are missing, and essentially I only have one on the front left and the back center screw holding it in place

I think I made a mistake — tired, not thinking — and attached the new oil sending pigtail to the old pigtail instead of the original, thicker cable. (So I forgot to remove the old pigtail and just attached to that). So now I’m hoping there’s enough room to operate under the vehicle to disconnect old pigtail, re-splice with new pigtail, and hope that fixes it... if not, could I have damaged the oil sending unit? Or is the difference in length adding enough resistance to the cable to throw the oil sending unit off?

Learning, learning, learning...


Edit: I should add the previous owner had a dual battery setup that I have disconnected (literally just disconnected everything going to the second battery, as well as the positive to positive cable from main battery to secondary), and I’m not familiar enough with everything to know if that could be influencing the voltage drop. Plan is to eventually put in a manual switch as there was no fuse, isolator, anything between the positive to positive connections.

 

[TheBestCow]

Bump for any further thoughts

 

[2001LC]

Check oil pressure manually.

What else is concern?

 

[TheBestCow]

Alright, think... THINK... might have it fixed.

Oil pressure gauge: I took out the splice I did (thinking I might have done it wrong), and re-spliced. Took off the old pigtail. Shortened the new pigtail to be closer to the original length. Hooked it up. Nothing. Neighbor started wondering if I had broken the oil sending unit. I had yanked on the sensor pretty hard (since I didn't know there was a push release)... and said well, if I'm going to have to buy a new one we might as well go ham on it. There was the gap between the black ring of the sensor and the body of the sending unit.

Unplugged the house, grabbed my vise grip, put one side on the black ring and the other side on the far side of the sending unit, squeeze. Replug, recheck. Still nothing. Figure I'd give it one last go before giving up, squeezed hard, and felt the sensor "slip" back into place. Replug. Restart. Boom - have oil pressure on gauge.

Test drove it a few times, took my kids to soccer practice last night. Voltage stays in the 13s, no stall, no hiccups, nothing.

Dare I say... fixed?

Thank you for all of the help and advice especially with the routing photo. Immensely helpful and really glad I didn't buy a fuel pump or alternator. I should've checked the wiring more closely originally -- lesson learned -- but did my first ever set of butt splices, and got it running again. Feeling somewhat accomplished!

 

[2001LC]

Great! Hopefully you use the solder, shrink-wrap & seal type butt splice.

 

[TheBestCow]

Great! Hopefully you use the solder, shrink-wrap & seal type butt splice.

It was the crimp kind, but I did buy heat shrink with the glue on the inside to seal it, and cut it with extra length to extend any entry point for contamination, and stuck it all back into split wire loom with some occasional electrical tape to help keep it shut (especially with the routing through the engine, as I was pulling on it on the bottom part of the oil sending wire popped out of the loom because of the angles, so popped it back in and put some electrical tape just to keep the loom more shut on those angles).

The best thing honestly is knowing if I had to do it again, I could learn how to solder, or I could re-butt splice if I had to. No idea how much money this has saved me, but it was maybe $20 in crimps, heat shrink, and wire total.

 

[TheBestCow]

It was the crimp kind, but I did buy heat shrink with the glue on the inside to seal it, and cut it with extra length to extend any entry point for contamination, and stuck it all back into split wire loom with some occasional electrical tape to help keep it shut (especially with the routing through the engine, as I was pulling on it on the bottom part of the oil sending wire popped out of the loom because of the angles, so popped it back in and put some electrical tape just to keep the loom more shut on those angles).

The best thing honestly is knowing if I had to do it again, I could learn how to solder, or I could re-butt splice if I had to. No idea how much money this has saved me, but it was maybe $20 in crimps, heat shrink, and wire total.

Following up on this... I took the gauge cluster out to move one of the working bulbs up to "P" so I'd get rid of the dash lights since it burned out.

2 red, metal "clips" fell out, and now I'm getting no oil pressure gauge action. I am assuming these are related. That or really weird coincidence where my wiring fix failed recently and I or my wife didn't notice the oil pressure gauge stopped working.

Troubleshooting steps?

I plan to order all new bulbs (and screws, lost one of the dash screws) to replace them all and reinstall correctly, but while I've got it out would love any tips on how to make sure everything re-connects correctly. Thanks to anyone who can help.