Crank not start issue

Hello, actually on these it's much easier to check for spark first because to do a fuel pressure test you need to T into the incoming fuel line and you also need a special tool to disconnect the fuel line from the fuel rail, although I have a trick for you on that. But here are the fuel pump circuit diagrams, the relay, and the fuses to check that power up the ECM.
As well as a couple guides to help you a long. But I would definitely check for spark first, since all you need to do is unplug one of the coils and put a spark plug in the end of it and ground part of the spark plugs end.
I just ran into one of these cars the other day and wanted to do a fuel pressure test but couldn't get the fuel line off the fuel rail. So, if you follow the fuel line down from the rail about a 1 1/2ft you'll find a connector that you're able to disconnect by squeezing the connector together and pull the line out. You can unhook it there to relieve fuel pressure if there is any. And then at the end up at the fuel rail, you'll see that the fuel line goes into a fuel pressure dampener. I unbolted the dampener and was able to get to the line better by taking the dampener off. Then use a small screwdriver to push the four tabs in on the connector to get the line apart. Then put the dampener back on the fuel rail and you'll have 2 lines that you can slide a hose over to do a fuel pressure test if needed,
But on the first diagram below is the relay that powers up the pump. And then the rest of the circuits are diagrams 2-4.
the EFI relay powers up the second relay to the pump.
Also, a side note, to get to the fuel pump you need to pull up the back seat and you can get right to it. Just pull out the C/OPN Relay and crank the engine over a few times to relieve any fuel pressure before you take the lines apart under the back seat.
The 6th diagram shows the fuel pressure dampener I took off to get at the fuel line better. It's only (2) 10mm bolts. The seventh diagram is the section of the fuel line that is about 1 1/2 ft down from the fuel rail, it is easy to get apart to relieve any extra pressure right there.
The fuel pressure spec is 44-50PSI.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-check-for-ignition-spark

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-check-fuel-system-pressure-and-regulator

Thank you, Al. I managed to check spark and I have it in all four coils. The car tried to fire but it sounded like a huge exhaust leak. I'm suspecting the flex pipe has completely cracked. Would this cause the computer to not be able to read the fuel/air condition? Can I use a solid piece of exhaust pipe in place of the flex pipe, or could that cause a cracked downpipe?

I don't think that would cause a no start; did you try starting it with some spraying some other fuel source in through the brake booster hose. that will tell you if it's a fuel issue. The flex pipe should be replaced with another flex pipe. It's there for a reason, But you should hear the fuel pump prime for 2 seconds at just Key On position. Or pull the up the back seat and see if you hear the fuel pump. it's easy to hear them with the seat up. You just have to pull up on both sides of the seat about a foot from the side.

The seat didn't lift but I couldn't hear the pump priming. I cranked it and smelled raw fuel . It seemed to be coming from under the car. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to work on it. Tomorrow, I will jack it up and look underneath. Thanks for your help.

I also replaced the EFI relay with a known good one from the horn. Then I replaced the C/OPN relay with the horn relay. Only the smell of raw fuel. Tomorrow is another day.

The back seat does come up, it is a pain though, you have to pull really hard, try having someone else on the other side pull up too. If you feel under the seat about a foot from the edge, you'll feel the bracket it hooks into. With two people you should be able to pull it up and access to the fuel pump will be under a small cover, I think the reason you're smelling fuel under the car is that broken exhaust pipe. Raw fuel is going down the exhaust. So, if you had good spark, I think here the clue is the popping in the exhaust, or intake manifold. I'm wondering if the timing chain jumped a couple of teeth, I'll put the timing marks diagram below for the cam sprockets. If you get to the point of having to check the timing, you can pull the valve cover and line up the camshaft sprockets. On the chain there should be two links that are usually blue in color that will line up with the marks (second diagram). Are you hearing the popping noise every time you crank the engine over? and is there any noise towards the intake manifold? And you can check for fuel pressure at the second connection down from the fuel rail. It's under the air intake tube. There's a little plastic cover over it that just pops off.

Unfortunately, I suspect timing too due to the popping. Easier to
check marks than fuel.

were the spark plugs wet with fuel when you took them out?

Only one. Decided to read codes before opening valve cover. All cylinders misfiring. Catalyst efficiency below threshold and manufacturer control ignition, P1349. There is no flex-pipe. Open downpipe. Brainbox or timing? Guess I'll open the cover tomorrow.

Okay, so the P1349 is the ECM is actuating the VVT solenoid but not seeing any camshaft timing change. If it was just a VVT solenoid fault I think it would still run, during the testing the VVT, at idle the engine would just run rough when the solenoid is turned on, and possibly stall out. But with this code the ECM is not seeing any movement at all. The first check in the manufactures flowchart is to check valve timing. So, checking the cam timing needs to be done anyway. So, we might be on the right track here with removing the valve cover and checking those camshafts. If the timing marks are ok and there is no slack in the chain, it's mostly circuit checks from there.
The pages below 2-4 are a TSB for this code and a way to check camshaft timing gear if there are no circuit issues. I've run into VVT issues before, and it never caused a no start. It was always an intermittent stalling issue. It would come and go on the highway. And are you getting the P0420 code for the converter? Or is it a different one? You're probably getting converter codes because of the rich condition of unburned fuel reaching the rear oxygen sensor and the ECM takes this as poor efficiency. Hopefully, the converter didn't go into meltdown. What was the order of the codes, was the p1349 first, and how did this problem first start? Did the car just stall and not start anymore or was there a drivability issue first?
I think we'll have better direction once we see if that chain is okay.

Al, I think the chain jumped. It was tight but when the marks should have lined up there was enough slack where I could see it being able to jump. Could the cam chain tensioner have failed, or would the chain have stretched? Is there a spec for measuring links for stretch? The order of the codes was PO300, 301, 302, 303, 304, PO420, P1349, P304. Does the chain have a master link or would a replacement chain have one? If the chain didn't stretch can the tensioner be released, and the cam timing be reset?

There was no drivability issue, just stalled and no restart.

Yes, there shouldn't be any slack in the chain at all. I couldn't find a picture of the timing chain setup on All Data or ProDemand. But I found a picture of the kit. This kit does not include a picture of the camshaft VVT gear (second picture). But in the first picture you'll see in yellow is the main timing chain hydraulic tensioner. The chain guides are brown. The bottom chain set is a vibration dampener, and it has its own tensioner that is just spring loaded. So, the VVT gear could have failed, the main tensioner could have failed or one of the guides could have broken where they bolt on. Any one of those will cause slack in the chain. Since you have a code for VVT as well, if you're going to repair this all, I would replace the VVT cam gear as well. There's no sense of just replacing the tensioner to find out it was the VVT gear that failed, and the valve timing is still off. It's a big job doing these timing chains as you can see.
The motor mount must come out and you have to support the engine to get to the timing chain cover. You will need specific tools to get the harmonic balancer off (crankshaft pulley). Then the crankshaft position sensor, the timing chain tensioner, the drive belt tensioner (fifth diagram). The oil pan doesn't have a gasket, it's just an applied sealer that's put on.
Next the hangers for the engine need to be bolted on, remove the power steering line, the engine mount and bracket that are on the timing cover side (front of engine). Then you get to the timing chain cover.
After the cover is off, it's pretty much lining up the marks correctly. These diagrams are installation guides as well. So, diagram eleven is lining up the marks for the #2 chain, reinstalling the lowest gear on the vibration damper (which also drives the oil pump).
You'll have a 4mm pin to hold the bottom gear and then the torque spec 22ft. lbs.
Diagram thirteen, rotate the crankshaft 90degrees to set the keyway up.
And finally, you'll be on to putting the main timing chain on with the lower and upper marks. Then the crankshaft position sensor plate with the "F" facing out.
Next it will finish up with sealing the timing cover back on and the torque pattern for the timing cover bolts. So, if you're going to do this job I'll post the last few instructions, but as you can see it's a lot of work. Toyota doesn't seem to provide each step in sequence either. Each timing cover bolt has a different torque spec and an order as well. After that it's putting the engine mount back in and the drive belt tensioner. Let me know if you're to attempt this and ill post the timing cover specs. I'm sorry it's not an easier setup.

Al, I'm not liking what I am hearing, Lol. I know you are just the messenger. I am almost convinced that what happened is my friend who borrowed my car for about a year allowed the oil to drop very low and hence the hydraulic tensioner failed allowing enough slack in the chain to jump teeth. The repair sounds like a pain in the a__. Who sets a different torque spec for each bolt? I have a friend who owns a Japanese auto repair shop and he said he has never had to do a chain on a 4-cylinder car. In fact, when I stopped in he was doing one on a Honda. I really don't think there is any damage to any of the parts or that the chain stretched . I honestly believe only the tensioner let up due to no oil. This car is known to use, not burn, up to a quart every 800 miles. It will easily use over three quarts between 3000-mile oil changes due to the original owner not keeping clean oil in it. I thought I might just try and set #1 at TDC on compression stroke and then slacken the chain enough to roll the cams into position but he said I would never get it all lined up. I don't like being told I can't do something but I'm starting to think he's right as are you in saying this silly mistake is going to require a teardown. I would like to personally thank the engineer who designed this one. I have done dual cam set ups in my bike with my eyes practically closed. This sounds like a nightmare. What are engine hangars and why are they necessary if the engine is already supported from underneath? Right now, the car is at a friend's house outside so I have to wait until I move it into my garage to do the teardown. I will definitely do it myself. I will also try my luck at my first choice. If I manage to get it all lined up am I somehow able to prime the tensioner before start up or I am sure it will jump before the oil gets into it. Since she put oil into it before it died it may already be primed but too late. The chain had already jumped. Actually, the repair sounds pretty straight forward excepting the strange Toyota quirks. Thanks as always, Al

Yeah the chain isnt stretched, and youre exactly right, these are great engines, I have one im working on right now that has 277,000miles on it and the engine sounds perfect. The issue with having the hang the engine is to get the main chain off you need to take off the lower chain and that requires removing the oil pan. But my thought was, if you get the marks to where they should be, or very close. And ill put diagrams for this. Since you want to just replace the tensioner and see if that does the trick and I would at least replace that. You can lock the exhaust camshaft with a big adjustable wrench. I would tie wrap the chain in place to the Intake cam gear to keep it in place, you dont want the chain falling off the crank sprocket. Remove the Exhaust camshafts bolt and gear, why couldnt you get the chain back to where it needs to be if the tensioner is out. Ive never tried this before on this car, So you'll have to get creative here, but Id like to help save you some headache if possible. Granted here we're assuming that the vvt gear on the intake camshaft is ok and nothing else is wrong. But I put the Exhaust camshaft gear installation as the last diagram, but you can see that theres a key indent on the gear. It should actually be the 4th diagram, but I think with that gear off and you dont move anything else, you might be able to get a new tensioner in there or just clean it up, make sure theres nothing blocking the oil passage.
You can see the tensioner is a plunger type, theres no spring as far as I know. So if she just ran it so low on oil that this actually happened. You might be able to do it this way. Without having to remove the timing cover. But Im just giving you the diagrams, I take no reasonability. You may have to replace the vvt solenoid and inspect the oil screen(Last diagram #26 is the vvt solenoid) . the solenoid is on the back of the head on the passenger side. There is a TSB about the vvt solenoid setting the P1349, but since you have slack in the chain, that needs to be fixed first. And im sure a couple good oil changes and filter to clear out whatever mess is in there. Im only giving you the info because youve done timing components before. You just have to be careful to keep that chain tight while the gear is off, The chain cant slip off the bottom crankshaft gear, or your timing marks will be off and it all has to come apart then. Youre friend is right, you wont be able to get the chain moved unless you take a cam gear off. Thats the only way I see this possible at all. If you can zip tie the chain to the other cam gear and it stays on the mark, and the colored chain link stays on that mark as well. You might be able to pull this off.
After you get it all together and youre sure the chain is tight, I would rotate the engine over by hand a few times to make sure those marks come back around when the #1 cylinder goes back up on TDC. Sorry if I repeated a couple of things, just want to make sure the chain doesnt get moved.

Thanks for the info and advice. Obviously, I take full responsibility for this attempt. Wish me luck. I may have more questions before I attempt this. Sure would be great if I could pull it off. Next, we'll have to discuss the oil consumption issue. This car is really clean and pulls 32 MPG and the stereo rocks. Thanks again Al.

Yeah, no problem, you wrote it uses a quart every 800 miles? When people tell me that and say it's not burning it, it's just that they don't notice it burning it. If there are no leaks, a bad PCV valve is usually the fault or excessively worn piston rings. Oil can't just disappear, it has to leak out or being mixed with the regular air/fuel mixture and burn. So, I would replace the PCV system on this vehicle. probably including the valve cover if it has baffles inside. Unless you can give it a really good cleaning out. If there's no puddle of oil under the car and you don't notice any seals leaking, the oil is going somewhere. If you notice a milky mess on the underside of the oil fill cap, that's another indication of poor crankcase ventilation.

There may be a leak on the passenger front side of the engine but no dropping to the ground. I know what you mean it doesn't just disappear. As I understood it Toyota knew about what they called oil consumers for this model car. If it was brought to their attention within 10 years or 150,000 and after you performed the test they required it was determined to "consume" excess oil, they would replace the pistons and rings. Apparently, the drain holes behind the oil control rings would plug up and cause the rings to stick. Their fix was to put pistons with larger drain holes behind the rings, but the new pistons had no cutout in the skirt, hence creating a new problem. Have you ever heard any of this? When I get the car back on the road, I will clean up the engine from all spills and put dye in the oil and look for a leak with blacklight. First things first. Thanks

I haven't heard that, but I will take a look and see if there are any TSBs or Recalls you should know about.
The TSB on the VVT just says to make sure the VVT gear on the left camshaft can move and isn't locked when you have the chain loose.
And the only other thing I see is a few TSBs on Airbag issues, so those are important to know about. I'm not sure they will replace the airbags for free after such a long time though.

Thank you, I'll let you know when I try the shortcut.

Okay, I hope it works for you. I think you'll be able to get it taken care of. It's a bummer she ran it so low on oil. Chat soon.

Al, I was going to try and set the timing. I installed my compression gauge into #1 cylinder to know when it was on compression stroke. There was no compression, so I checked the rest. #2,0 PSI, #3 strong, #4 about 60 PSI. I didn't get the final numbers. So, could this be due to timing where both valves are open at the same time? Why would #3 be strong, #4 weak and the other two zero? Baffled. How can I set #1 to TDC compression with no compression?

Thats not good. If the chain jumped more than just one or two teeth like what it first seemed, the pistons could have hit the valves. Since the pistons on these engines are straight down, you put a long screw driver down or thin pole until it rests on top of the piston and turn the engine over very slow by hand until the pole moves to its highest point, once it's at its highest point it will start moving back down then you know you're at TDC, for the #1 cylinder the marks on the crankshaft pulley will be lined up too. I was hoping the chain had only jumped 1 or 2 teeth because there was a cylinder back firing through the exhaust, it must have been the one cylinder doing that, Best thing you can do now is rotate the engine by hand, get the number 1 up to TDC and if you have one of those compression gauges that you can take the gauge off and attach an air hose to it. You can put some compressed air into the cylinder and see where it's leaking out. But remember you're not going to have compression right now. The valve timing is off for the most part. You were doing a cranking compression test i assume? Sorry for my crude drawing below, but this is how I would find TDC with a loose timing chain. Crank it over by hand.
Also, you didn't do any damage during your compression test, whatever damage was done, happened when the engine quit running.
The mark on the Harmonic Balancer is for the #1 TDC. And you probably have the valve cover off. Every 1/4 turn of the camshaft is the next cylinder at TDC. So, when you have the 2 cams up on the #1 TDC, if you turn the cam only 1/4 turn, you next cylinder (#3) is up on TDC . The firing order is 1-3-4-2.

I'm aware of the screwdriver method to find TDC. I hope there are no holes in the pistons. For now, I picked up a 1999 Corolla for $350. Runs like a top. I'm still going to try to reset the chain. I'll also try to see if I see any damaged pistons. I have used my comp tester for leak detection before also. Got some weird braking issues on a 2000 ZR2 Blazer. Look for another question soon. Thank you. Hope you had a nice holiday.

I doubt you have any holes in pistons, bent valves is much more of what I would expect to see if the chain jumped far enough. It takes quite a lot to break a piston, unless the head of a valve actually came off. At this point with that car, I would probably take the timing cover off and inspect everything, since you already know it might be more of just a loose chain. How high was the compression on the #3? I picked up a 2004 Camry too, if I can just find a front Air/Fuel sensor for it that's not $300.00.

Still not ready to give up on shortcut. Have to try it. I didn't get an exact number, but it jumped quickly over 125. I need to get the Corolla on the road before I worry about it. Also picked up a 2001 Prelude with a header, stainless exhaust with a can and cool air intake. Maybe more engine work was done. Right now, crank no start. Haven't even looked at it other than to know oil was low. From what I have read the VTEC won't engage but shouldn't cause no start. More to come. There was a Camry in a boneyard near me where they practically gave me the parts. What years will interchange with your 2004? I'm heading down there soon and could take a look around for you. Shoot me a picture of the part you need if you want.

I saw one on eBay for $46.00 for a 3.0L pt. no. 15962.

Yeah, that's cylinder #3 that hit 125psi is a bit strange with all the others at 0. At least the valves aren't bent in that one, or it could be that the particular cylinder happened to have the chain slack on the opposite side, so the cylinder sealed up. But it's tough to tell until you get things lined up and see how far off it is. I don't know if you use oscilloscopes, but it's a great way to check valve timing, either doing in-cylinder pressure testing of scoping the cam and crank position sensors and finding a known good waveform for that car (which I can get for you). and comparing the signals. But using a scope takes some practice, If we're going to be exchanging parts id better email you about that instead, but I'll still help you with diagnosing the Camry here. I am curious to see the condition of the engine. I'll see if I can find any other information about the valves, if that's an interference engine or not. It would be really great if it was not.

Okay, on Toyota's end, this is a very unwise build. On the V6 Camry's from 1990-2006 they are not interference engines, but all 4 cylinder Camry's from 2002-2021 are interference engines. It's very disappointing news. It says some engines with timing belts are non-interference engines but if it has a chain they are. I guess they think that nothing can go wrong with a timing chain setup. Also says the only time a chain setup will have an issue is if the oil level goes too low, which is what happened to yours. So, you will probably run into belt valves. The only good news is that it only has one cylinder head to deal with. It gets real expensive when it comes to dealing with 2 heads. Do you have the 2AZ-FE engine in that one?

Thank you for being the bearer of such good news. I haven't even looked at the Camry for a while. It's not bothering anyone where it sits. I don't own a scope but would like to learn how to use one when time permits. Busy working on the 1999 Corolla I picked up to combat these outrageous gas prices. Let me know if you want me to look for that part next time I head to the boneyard. What a stupid design by Toyota. We all know chains stretch and fail.Soon I'll have all the time in the world to tear it apart in my garage. Anxious to get into the Prelude.

You're exactly right, they act like nothing will go wrong, it's not even the chain stretching so much as it is the chain guides failing, once they break at one of the 2 bolt locations, the guide is flapping in the breeze. As for scopes, if you have a laptop, Pico has a scope 2204A, it's not an automotive scope but it's just over a $150, 2 channel. I'd be glad to show you how to use it and tricks that can save you having to tear motors down to find faults. Their software is free too, you could download it right now to try it in demo mode. I use my scope for everything. And sorry for giving you bad news, it's the worst feeling telling someone there's a major issue with their vehicle.

Hi Al, I finally got a look underneath the car and this is what I found: She threw a rod in cylinder number one at least and after that the rest is moot. I'll send you a picture of what I see.

Oh wow, I wasn't expecting it to be that bad. I have seen more rods coming through engine blocks this year than ever in my life. I wonder if this has something to do with oil quality or some other outside reason besides normal wear. It did have a lot of miles on it, but I've worked on some of these that are pushing 280,000 and the engine block is the only sound component left. Thanks for the update. I'll keep that picture for the archives. Sorry to hear the bad news, but thanks for the picture Jeff..

Is a snap on Solus worth picking up? Is it a scope?

Honestly, I don't know if that scan tool has an oscilloscope built into it, but I saw a video yesterday that was about how some of these aftermarket scan tools can give incorrect data. I posted the video below. But for oscilloscopes I use a Pico Scope, it's a pc-based scope, you can actually go to their website and download and run the scope software. It just runs in Demo mode until you buy one of their scopes, but the Pico does so many different things it's my go to oscilloscope for things that need a very good in depth look at. I also have a handheld Hantek 2D72 which has a multimeter, a scope, and a signal generator built into one. I use that for grabbing quick signals. When I don't want to get my laptop out. But go to PicoTech.com and try the software. It can actually decode CANBUS network data packets. Plus, a million other things. For scan tools, I have an Autel, a TopDon, and a couple older scan tools. The Autel is pretty amazing. Snap On is just so expensive for almost everything they sell, not saying they are not any good because they are, but you pay a lot. The Pico scope also has 3 or 4 pdf files on user information. So, it's easy to learn. I also recommend if you're going to get into using a scope, buy Attenuators with it, at least a couple 20:1. They step the voltage signal down to protect the scope, but you just set the scope on a 20:1 attenuator and it will show the correct voltage. There's a couple of pictures of the Pico 6 software I use, and a second pic is a couple of my own pressure transducers I built that I use for fuel pressure and in cylinder pressure testing. I think for the price of the Solus you could get a couple of other diagnostic tools. If you wanted lessons on using a scope, I would have to do that on the side. I wouldn't be able to do it on here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mags7bhzCR4