6G Celicas Forums

Sorry, don't have a superstrut suspension on my st204. If you do get this figured out, post the results.

Nothing suitable at the wrecker. Still need to try reprogramming tho.

Thanks for sharing the picture! Good to rule out the RS3000. As for it the alarm still working, when the wire pictured earlier is connected to ground, the fob works properly. The doors lock and un-lock properly. The running lights and dash lights stay on, even when they should flash for arm/disarm.

I did find this post on ih8mud showing the same fob and TVSS unit. I'm going to try erasing and re-programming the codes to see if it makes any difference. Failing that, the fallback plan is to hit up the wrecker to find another TVSS like mine. From this list it looks like a bunch of cars used the same TVSS IIIB.

It seems like I have a fob from a TVSS III-B system. The control module looks similar but not identical. Most pictures show the III-B with dip switches to adjust the things.
It's not a VIP RS3000 or RS3200 as those modules have three connectors, and different remotes.
Can't find much info on the Toyota 5000, aka Scorpion T5000.

After further testing, the Toyota Vehicle Security System (TVSS) is playing a part in this problem. This is the system in the car.



Along with this fob.



I've yet to find a source showing which system this is. Some sites indicate the TVSS III-B. Others suggest it's an RS3000. I'm leaning towards the III-B, but am still looking for definitive information.

If I disconnect the TVSS, the parking lights and dash lights go out. Reconnect it, lights come on.
If I disconnect the TVSS, disconnect and re-connect the battery, the car will not start. Will not turn over, no click from Starter relay.
If I reconnect the TVSS, disconnect and re-connect the battery, the car will start, once. I tested this a few times to confirm the TVSS was playing a part in the problem.

After more testing, I found what appears to be the ground line from the TVSS in the drivers footwell near junction block 1. I found it properly connected to the body, and was not previously disconnected. I just have it in my hand to take the picture.



It is connected with a ring terminal to the body with a bolt. The bolt also secures another ground connector, along with what I believe is the starter cut-out relay. Still trying to find the correct name for that relay. I fiddled with the relay, testing in scenarios where I know the engine would start. With the relay disconnected, the engine would never start. I've since put the relay back in place.





If i disconnect that lead, the parking lights and dash lights turn out. The car will not start, but the lights are working properly. If I ground that lead and attempt to start the engine, it will start, but the parking + dash lights come on and stay on.

I still don't have a full solution to this problem, but am making progress.

Run into a new problem. A few weeks back I replaced the upper rad hose and failed coolant bypass pipe. That went smoothly. Reinstalled the airbox and flexible pipe leading to the throttle body. Reconnected the negative terminal, hopped in the car and fired it up. Nothing weird happened. Idled it for a bit to burp the system. Waited maybe 5 minutes then shut everything off. Put some tools away (maybe 2 minutes) and went to start the car to move it, but it wouldn't start. I also noticed the parking lights and dash lights were still on from when I had run the car just a moment ago.

Here is what I have noticed so far.

1. disconnecting the negative terminal shuts the lights off. reconnecting the terminal, parking lights and dash lights come on. Headlight stalk is turned to 'off' position.
2. after re-connecting the negative terminal, I can start the car. If I shut the car off, even for 10 seconds, then attempt to restart, it does nothing. Disconnecting and reconnecting the battery allows the car to start again.
3. Attempting to 'start' the engine with the key after the 1st successful start does not energize the starter relay in relay block 2 in the engine compartment. Swapping the EFI and Starter relay has confirmed this is not a relay issue. Also checked the Starter relay connector pins with a volt meter. I also swapped the two relays, disconnected and reconnected the battery, car starts properly, but again only once.. I've since swapped the relays back.

So there are two issues, and they may or may not be related.

I continued to troubleshoot the lights issue. Thankfully celicatech has the 1994 Toyota Celica Service Tech Manual. I grabbed the electrical diagrams (system wiring diagrams.pdf) and started from there.
1. Disconnect the 15A TAIL fuse, parking lights go out. Car still starts once, not again.
2. Disconnect the 7.5A PANEL fuse, dash lights go out. Car appears to start properly over and over. Successfully started the car 5 times.
3. Reinstall either TAIL or PANEL fuse, car will only start once. I did try one, then the other.
4. Reinstalled both TAIL and PANEL fuses.
5. Remove steering wheel and disconnect combination switch. Parking lights and dash lights stayed on, car only starts once.
6. Remove and disconnect the integration relay. Lights stay on, car only starts once.
7. Pull out TAILLIGHT relay from jumper block 1. This took a bit of work to remove. There are three relays, the one closest to the steering column being the right one. Pulling this relay out turns out the parking lights and the dash lights. I can't remember the results from testing this. Will have to do it again.
8. Checked the battery voltage. 11.92v with engine not running. 14.3v with engine running at idle. The car does not 'hard start' or sound slow when turning over.

I did test the three relays from J/B1 on the bench and confirmed that they are working. I went by a wrecker today and picked three of those relays, and the integration relay. Unfortunately swapping them didn't yield any positive results.

Reading through this now, I wonder if the factory alarm is buggered up. It also connects to the parking lights and dash lights (flashing when you arm/disarm) and I believe is also an immobilizer. Going to start digging for that information.

This is a bit of a ramble. If anyone has other suggestions, I'm all ears.

Ordered a Valve Grind Gasket Kit for a '99 Celica w/ 5S-FE, Toyota Part 04112-74581. Just under $300 CAD including taxes. Should be in early next week.

Got home and realized I forgot to order the head bolts. Oops.

Thanks for the reply Smaay. I'll pop into the dealer tomorrow and see what they can do.

I don't think I articulated my position on price. I'm not concerned about the price. The driving factor here is having the parts department of the local Toyota dealer say they could no longer order that part, and seeing various web sites indicate that the part is no longer available, I came to the conclusion that I won't be able to get one. I agree with you that going cheap is not the wisest of choices, and OEM parts is the best approach, but my problem isn't about how much things cost, but availability of parts.

One thing I haven't investigate enough is, is there a different OEM valve grind gasket kit, perhaps for a different vehicle like the Camry or MR2, that would work for this motor?

Ya, the 9468 PT seems like the right head gasket. I'm looking at the entire kit, since aside from replacing the valve cover gasket+gromets a few years back, everything else I'm about to take apart should most likely be replaced anyways. I just compared the included gaskets between the (thanks ms paint!) and the only differences I can see are that the HS 9468 PT (for 97-99 Celica) kit includes more gaskets, beyond what's included in the HS 9861 PT kit (for 90-97 Celica).





If I'm identifying them correctly, the HS 9861 PT kit includes the head gasket, intake and exhaust gaskets, valve cover gasket + grommets, distributor o-ring, throttle body gasket, water pump rear port gasket, valve stem seals, injector o-rings, egr gasket, and a few others I can't quite place. The HS 9468 PT kit includes the same and more, but maybe I just don't need to use the extras.

I think posting here and typing this out has helped work through my problem. Unless there is feedback from other people, I'm going to go with the Fel-Pro HS 9468 PT kit.

Hello!

I've got a '94 GT-S with the 5S-FE and coolant leaking into cylinder #2. There is no coolant in the oil, but I can still blow steam out the exhaust even after driving around 20-30 minutes. The coolant smells like exhaust, and I recently had the plugs out, put some paper over the spark plug holes, cranked it over and found the spot above cyl #2 was wet and didn't evaporate (gas does). The other day after driving home from work I decided to rev the motor up to 4-5k a couple times just to see what would come out the back. This was a bit of a surprise, and looked kind of neat.





To give a bit of back story, about two months ago the car overheated on the highway and puked out the remaining coolant through the overflow. When I managed to get the car home I concluded that it was the water pump as after re-filling the rad, I could see a tiny stream coming from the side of the pump housing. I replaced the water pump, timing belt and thermostat, and hoped it was solved. However, after driving for a couple of weeks, I found that I had to top up the radiator a few times. This brings us up to now, with the info from the first paragraph.

The car is losing coolant through what I presume is a failed head gasket. There are no stickers to indicate the head gasket had previously been replaced. With some other posts regarding composite head gaskets in this year being a weak point, I'm confident this is my problem. Since I already did the water pump and timing belt, replacing the head gasket is within my grasp.

Now, onto my question.

The local Toyota dealer can't seem to order in the valve grind gasket kit for the '94 Celica (p/n: 04112-74502) as it's no longer available. That's OK, since that kit is unlikely to contain a MLS (multi-layer steel) head gasket. So I contacted the local auto parts, and they carry Fel-Pro. Looking at their site, the Head Gasket Set (p/n: HS 9861 PT) doesn't look to include an MLS HG either. That kit says it's for the Celica 2.2L 1990-1997. But, no MLS HG, so I'm not interested.

The Fel-Pro Head Gasket Set (p/n: HS 9468 PT) for the 1997-1999 Celica 2.2L does include an MLS HG, but the pictures indicate it doesn't include the same gaskets as the kit HS 8916 PT kit.

So I did a quick mspaint comparison of the head gaskets between the above kits.



They look pretty darn close, aside from the top three connected passages having different separators.

So, with the slight differences between those two kits, and the different number of gaskets, I don't know what to buy. There are other posts on here saying the felpro kit is ****, get something 'better'. But what is good if the OEM kit isn't available.

I started looking on Rockauto.com to see the offerings. For the '94, some kits have MLS gaskets, others don't. The Victor Reinz HS4920A includes a MLS head gasket, and is listed as "one of our most popular parts".

So, it's 2015, my car is now 21 years old, what head gasket kit should I be getting?

Thank you for posting the seat clean/repair pictures. That's exactly what I need to do to mine. Looks easy enough.

Cloth seats? Looking for a good passengers seat. Don't need seat rails. How much with shipping to 98844, unless you're in Canada, then shipping to V2A1Z4. Please post picture first.

Assuming you're keeping your wallet in the rear pocket, consider removing it before driving. There are quite a few articles online about sitting on your wallet while driving leading to back pain. By not sitting on it, you can save yourself some possible back pain in the future AND not wear your pants pockets out so fast.

Pop the wheels off and check that the sensors are actually there. When I bought mine some PO clipped the front sensors and I was getting both 31 and 32. If they're there, check all the connections to see if they're nice and clean, no broken wires, etc. Just the regular troubleshooting.

Sucks man. I hit a deer just north of Osoyoos last fall. Stupid deer. Best of luck on finding parts. Where are you located? There are some forum members in AB that might be able to help.

Dropped all the rear suspension to replace the bushings. Had the following happen.
- destroyed both ABS sensors
- found PS caliper top bolt had sheared at some point in the past.
- parking brake on PS had engaged and couldn't dis-engage enough to spin rotor and release tensioner. completely destroyed parking brake assembly getting it apart, but didn't damage the cable.
- mushroomed one 8" bolt, but both are seized.

hopefully the fronts are a bit easier.

S'all good! I'll make sure to msg you in time for next years

Doh.

The first thing I fixed on my car (the morning after I bought it) was one of the front wheel bearings. When turning corners it made a nasty noise which was the rotor rubbing against the shield. Turns out the inner race on the bearing was spinning on the hub. When we took it apart, it literally fell on the ground. So the bearing and hub were garbage. After finding a suitable hub from a 4th gen celica and ripping to Lordco (three minutes before they closed) I had all the parts to rebuild it. With a friend, his 10T jack and a semi truck, we managed to remove the old bearing from the hub and press on the new bearing. Been driving on it for over two years now, no problems.

Amazing car. But why weren't you at Run of the Ogopogo with the rest of the Alberta guys?

IT WAS AWESOME!

They are a separate part. They are not included with the valve cover gasket. (I did this just a few months ago).

Hey gatar11,

Your post reminded me of an earlier problem I had in the same area. Check this out as it might be helpful. You might be able to just rebuild your distributor with some new sensors and a coil instead of buying a completely new assembly.

Hope that helps.

This happened last year, has been fixed and working without issue. I figured since I've confirmed the fix it's time to post something.

At 10pm about an hour from home, driving on the highway, my engine decided it didn't want to run any more. All of the electrical systems were working, but the motor didn't want to run even though it was turning over just fine. Started troubleshooting from my phone while waiting for a ride home. Managed to pull a code by jumping T1-E1, but sadly have forgotten what it was now.

Got home a couple hours later. Continued researching, found that it was most likely something in the distributor, either no spark or something else. Packed up some tools in the minivan along with some 110v work lamps and an inverter. Got back to the car around 2am and decided to see if it would start. It fired right up. WTF. From the reading I was suspecting something heat related, so took it for a drive down the highway and see what happens.

I did about 4KM of driving, making sure to bring it up to temperature and thought everything was working properly. I had brought a razor scooter thinking I might need to bring both vehicles back on my own and didn't want to walk back and forth. Drove the car about 500M down the road and it died again.

So then I setup the van with the work lights and tool boxes and popped off the distributor. Checking the hall effect sensors showed that everything was good. But my previous research still made me think it was heat related. So I packed up the van and brought the distributor home.



Got home around 4am and took the distributor apart. The distributor on my 1994 5S-FE actually has three sensors in the housing. Two wired in series on the bottom and a 3rd just above it. After some testing with the meter and a heat gun, it turns out one of the sensors wired in series was bad. After it heats up, the circuit goes open. So, it's garbage. Time to sleep.

Woke up the next morning and had already planned to do family stuff out of town for the day. I wasn't sure what to do, so while we were out I bought a reman distributor from Lordco and had planned on installing it that evening. At $330 or some such, I was a bit pissed that this stupid sensor was going to make me buy an entirely new distributor. It sat in the box in the van for the rest of the day. Got home that night and thought about the problem some more. Did some more researching and decided to go to the wrecker (pick 'n pull) in the morning.

Luckily I had already fixed a few things on my car with parts from other Toyota models from the same era. I posted about my ABS sensors that work awesome, and recently replaced the hatch/gas latch assembly from a Corolla. I was pretty sure I could either find an 5S-FE or something else that used the same or pretty damn similar distributor.

The morning came, I packed up tools and headed to the wrecker.



After two hours of walking around and taking things apart, I found that the Toyota 3E-E motor uses almost the same distributor, but the connectors to the hall effect sensor are different. Grey plugs vs/ four pin connector. So I picked up a distributor from some Tercel (forgot the year) for $25.



Took it apart and confirmed that it was electrically identical to the Celica setup. Everything was good, so now, time to make it work. Clipped off the old plugs and soldered and shrink tubed up the 'new' sensors to the four pin connector. Packed up the tools again and drove back to the car. Installed my new modded distributor, and the car fired right up. This time I had the wife with, so she could drive the van home. Luckily because the new distributor hadn't come out of the box yet, Lordco let me return it. So a $300+ repair was cut down to $25 and probably 6-8 hours of time on the weekend.

bump