Bought a Camry, seems to have a couple of problems - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

69GTSport · 03-12-2010, 08:55 PM

Hi everyone, I'm new here, but not to automotive forums, been a member on many of them over the last 10 years. Anyways, I just bought a '95 Camry LE 4 dr. It has 109K miles on it. It seems to have a couple of problems, mainly the brakes (also no parking brake) are noisy & the pedal pulsates and drops down pretty low, and there's a noise when I make a sharp left or right turn coming from the left front of the car. So, I'm suspecting I have a bad CV joint and that the brakes need replacing. Anyone have any writeups on replacing the entire driver's side CV halfshaft axle (not just replacing the boots)? I found a couple of writeups for the brakes already. My plan is to go ahead and have a couple of local shops check the car out and give me their opinions on the car of what it needs. Then I'll go and start wrenching once I know what I need to buy, & how to do it

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Also, are there any downloads for manuals for this car?

haux · 03-12-2010, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 69GTSport

Also, are there any downloads for manuals for this car?

to TN!

http://www.camrystuff.com/

I'm sure someone else will post about your other questions.

92Squiggy · 03-12-2010, 10:45 PM

Welcome!

First about the brakes makes sure there is ample brake fluid in the resevoir. You probably have a low amount since the pedal is dropping so low.
You might also want to consider doing a brake job on the car just as a preemptive maintainence because you can never really trust people when theyre selling a used car unless its a 1 or 2 owner with tons of service history.

That sound when turning sounds like a CV axle. Theyre about $45 and can take an afternoon to replace by urself.

Instead of downloading a manual just go to your local autoparts store and buy a hardcopy for $25. That way you have something you can use right next to what youre fixing. It also explains how to do EVERYTHING easily.

Hope I helped!

69GTSport · 03-17-2010, 05:13 AM

Thanks for those replies.

I finally got a chance yesterday to check over the car and found that BOTH CV axles' outer boots have torn. Both the rear brake adjusters were stuck, so I turned them until they were about right, which brought the brake pedal up. It was a pain to get the drums off as someone had installed them wrong so that the threaded holes to allow you to screw bolts into it to pop them off were not against the hub! Luckily Toyota designed the rear inspection hole so that you can bang on the drum using a properly sized item that doesn't hit the shoe.
Also, the right front brake pad had worn down to metal, while the left one was fine with plenty of pad left. Could be an issue with the caliper not releasing? Also, I see alot of oil leaking on the back of the engine coming from the valve cover, on the back left side toward the bottom-maybe from the timing cover seals, as well as from what looks like a switch or sensor right below the valve cover by the distributor on the front of the engine.
Now I see why the dealer was so willing to accept my lowball offer. Oh well, I knew buying the car that it was going to need work, at least if I do it myself, it'll cost a whole bunch less than what a shop would charge.

jetwhine · 03-17-2010, 09:14 AM

69 GTsport,

Do you know when the timing belt was done last? With the timing belt job you can replace all the seals, oil pump, crank seal and cam seal. The valve cover gaskets seem to leak over time and is comon. Which makes a mess. Also the oil cooler "O" ring which is located under the oil filter also leaks.
As far as the brakes are concerned it sounds like the left caliper needs some attention as well as the rotors. The shaking you feel is warped disc's. That is also comon on the camry's.
The CV's are not hard to pull, but you will need an alignment when the job is complete.

69GTSport · 03-17-2010, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jetwhine

69 GTsport,

Do you know when the timing belt was done last? With the timing belt job you can replace all the seals, oil pump, crank seal and cam seal. The valve cover gaskets seem to leak over time and is comon. Which makes a mess. Also the oil cooler "O" ring which is located under the oil filter also leaks.
As far as the brakes are concerned it sounds like the left caliper needs some attention as well as the rotors. The shaking you feel is warped disc's. That is also comon on the camry's.
The CV's are not hard to pull, but you will need an alignment when the job is complete.

Thanks for that reply, I have no idea of anything about this car as I bought it from the "not for sale" back lot at a local car dealer's used car lot. The car has 109K miles on it. So, I'm going to assume the timing belt will need to be done once I get near 120K, right? I suppose I'll check all that stuff then. For now, the plan is to change the oils/fluids, fix the front brakes, change cv axles, check the spark plugs,and other odds & ends...

hill8570 · 03-17-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 69GTSport

Thanks for that reply, I have no idea of anything about this car as I bought it from the "not for sale" back lot at a local car dealer's used car lot. The car has 109K miles on it. So, I'm going to assume the timing belt will need to be done once I get near 120K, right? I suppose I'll check all that stuff then. For now, the plan is to change the oils/fluids, fix the front brakes, change cv axles, check the spark plugs,and other odds & ends...

You're assuming that the belt was changed at 60K miles -- that's by no means assured. Lots of folks just let it go until the belt snaps.

Retrospekt · 03-17-2010, 09:56 PM

I bought my Camry with 148k and it had the original belt on. My guess is your belt was never replaced, and that is your crank seal spewing oil.

Nervous · 03-17-2010, 10:21 PM

Ha! Do you want to see an original belt at 200K miles? Here it is:

Crankshaft timing pulley:

Seized water pump:

69GTSport · 04-03-2010, 07:29 PM

Thanks for those replies guys. I've gotten about 23 hours of my time into this car so far, lol. It's got two new cv axles (yes, the carrier bearing was stuck in the engine mount bracket-cost $65 to get it removed and about an extra 4 hours of my time to remove it off the engine). It's got new front pads & rotors. One of the slider pins was dry, causing the front right caliper to not retract properly, thus wearing the outer pad down to the backer plate. I then drained & filled the radiator (opened the engine block's drain plug, too), changed the diff. & trans fluids, then the engine oil. Charged up the a/c system. I also put on new serpentine belts.
The car is driving very nicely now. But I am still hearing a noise coming from the engine, I'm thinking it may be one of the bearing idlers for the timing belt. So, I ordered a kit off eBay to replace the stuff behind the timing covers, lol. I got a kit w/ a waterpump w/ housing, both idlers, timing belt, t-stat, & crank/cam seals. I still have to get the oil pump stuff, too. I'd also like to check the spark plugs, and if they're needing replacing, then I'll go the whole 9 yards with that and get wires & dist. cap/rotor, too. I guess this means I still have quite a few more hours of wrenching to go

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***LynchburgCSI*** · 04-03-2010, 09:14 PM

Good so far, GTSport! I figured this might help a bit when the rest of your parts come in: http://www.**********s.com/camry/

69GTSport · 05-25-2010, 11:09 AM

Thought I'd update this thread a bit more. I've gone ahead and flushed the ps fluid, replaced the broken center console w/ another one off eBay, and then got the timing belt changed, along w/ the cam/crank seals & the waterpump/housing/t-stat and the oil pump shaft/impeller/seal (as suspected the old shaft was grooved from the seal). It went well. The main problem I see now is the crankshaft itself has a groove along where it mates up against the seal as it's still leaking a bit of oil onto the ground. I also got the valve cover gasket/PCV valve changed. Checked the valve clearance, all were practically in the middle of the specs, except for one exhaust valve, which was a hair off the middle spec on the loose side. I then cleaned out the throttle body using a spray cleaner and replaced the fuel filter, the spark plugs, and the dist. cap/rotor and then changed the trans oil again, as it still looked dingy. I really havent' noticed much difference in how it runs so far as shakyness at idle and throttle response. But installing the bigger later model upper engine mount did help the idle some.
Here are some mileage numbers I've gotten with the car, I took it on a couple of trips one of which was to Colorado/Utah and back:
25.1 (about 60 % city)
23.5 (about 80% city)
39.6 (60 mph avg.)
27.5 (about 50% highway)
35.9 (65 mph)
31.6 (70 mph)
33.5 (70 mph)
37.5 (65 mph)
36.8 (65 mph)
35.3 (65 mph)
32.5 (all highway at 65 mph except about 40 miles of city)
These all look like good mileage numbers, right?
The very last things I've done are to replace a torn rack & pinion bellow (very, very hard to find thru aftermarket, Autozone was able to locate an "alternative size" for my application which is a Duralast bellow thru a "parts book" look-up) and the rear sway bar bushings as the rear bar was so loose in the old bushings that it was making a loud clunking noise as it banged around inside them. Now the car is very quiet

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Hope some of this info was interesting for someone and hopefully I will now have many years of service out of this car.

73sport · 05-25-2010, 12:20 PM

^^
You did state the car is very queit now. Was this "I'm thinking it may be one of the bearing idlers for the timing belt." the source?

Sounds like you making great headway. . .

Keep it up, these are great cars. . .

69GTSport · 05-25-2010, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 73sport

^^
You did state the car is very queit now. Was this "I'm thinking it may be one of the bearing idlers for the timing belt." the source?

Sounds like you making great headway. . .

Keep it up, these are great cars. . .

Thanks for that response 73sport, well the quietness I mention is related to the rear suspension clunking being gone, but I guess the engine is a bit quieter also due to the new timing belt as the old one did squeal a bit for a few minutes when the engine was first started-probably because it was stretched and probably loose against the idlers. It did have cracks on the belt about every 1/4 inch on its smooth side which made me think it was from rubbing against the idlers.
But there is still a noise coming from the engine, and I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it may be the balance shafts assembly. It's kind've a "wornout bearing" type of noise, but it isn't very loud, and it hasn't gotten worse but is audible from inside the car w/ the windows up at engine rpms above idle and below 2000 rpms. The noise is still there even after removing the serpentine belts, so it's coming from the engine. It seems most noticeable when you position yourself over the middle front part of the engine directly above the exhaust assembly coming off the engine.