I thought I might try to contribute to this board in some small way, so I had thought from time to time, I might share a bit of wisdom from the years I have been out on the road in one make of car or another.
I will see about posting some photos and edit this at a later time.
As we all are probably aware, bad grounds can wreak havoc on a car's electrical system. Modern ECM modules depend on proper grounding for signal transfer, and most sensors, if not all, are grounded on one side of the circuit. My venerable '96 Volvo 960 is notorious for acting strangely when a ground is loose, missing, or poorly connected.
The Camry is no exception. One of the nice things about the 5-SFE is that the engine grounds are fairly easy to get to. On the driver's side of the engine is one main body ground, which is beside the air box, to get to it requires removal of the air box assembly (at least for me). I like to take a stainless wire brush to the bolt, and use sandpaper on the ring connector. The I apply dielectric grease to both the bolt threads, and to the ring connector, and then reinstall. This particular ground wire leads in two directions, one end terminates at the top of the transmission housing, and the other side leads to the driver's side engine hoist hanger, which incidentally, holds the bracket stay for the upstream O2 sensor, along with others. I repeated the procedure at both ends here as well. Now. off to the passenger side...
On the passenger side, we observe that there are 2 plug together connectors, this facilitates the removal of the upper timing cover. I like to use a quality electrical cleaner on these connectors, as they will almost always corrode internally. Mine were filthy. Locate the body ground bolt on the passenger strut tower. It may be easier to access if you loosen/remove the PS reservoir, which I did. I cleaned the bolt and ring connector here as well. I sprayed the QD cleaner into the connector ends at least twice before they came clean, then lubed them with dielectric grease. One of these connectors terminates at the left engine hoist hanger, the other curls around the timing cover, and terminates at a bolt connected to the head an inch or so down.
While I was at it, I pulled my headlight connectors, sprayed them with the QD cleaner, wiped them down, and lubed them with grease as well. I won't be having problems with the headlights for a long time. Everything cleaned up nicely.
I encourage you to do this procedure as well, and if others might know of ground points I have missed, please enlighten me. A little maintenance goes a long way, and so do our Toyotas! Cheers!
I will see about posting some photos and edit this at a later time.
As we all are probably aware, bad grounds can wreak havoc on a car's electrical system. Modern ECM modules depend on proper grounding for signal transfer, and most sensors, if not all, are grounded on one side of the circuit. My venerable '96 Volvo 960 is notorious for acting strangely when a ground is loose, missing, or poorly connected.
The Camry is no exception. One of the nice things about the 5-SFE is that the engine grounds are fairly easy to get to. On the driver's side of the engine is one main body ground, which is beside the air box, to get to it requires removal of the air box assembly (at least for me). I like to take a stainless wire brush to the bolt, and use sandpaper on the ring connector. The I apply dielectric grease to both the bolt threads, and to the ring connector, and then reinstall. This particular ground wire leads in two directions, one end terminates at the top of the transmission housing, and the other side leads to the driver's side engine hoist hanger, which incidentally, holds the bracket stay for the upstream O2 sensor, along with others. I repeated the procedure at both ends here as well. Now. off to the passenger side...
On the passenger side, we observe that there are 2 plug together connectors, this facilitates the removal of the upper timing cover. I like to use a quality electrical cleaner on these connectors, as they will almost always corrode internally. Mine were filthy. Locate the body ground bolt on the passenger strut tower. It may be easier to access if you loosen/remove the PS reservoir, which I did. I cleaned the bolt and ring connector here as well. I sprayed the QD cleaner into the connector ends at least twice before they came clean, then lubed them with dielectric grease. One of these connectors terminates at the left engine hoist hanger, the other curls around the timing cover, and terminates at a bolt connected to the head an inch or so down.
While I was at it, I pulled my headlight connectors, sprayed them with the QD cleaner, wiped them down, and lubed them with grease as well. I won't be having problems with the headlights for a long time. Everything cleaned up nicely.
I encourage you to do this procedure as well, and if others might know of ground points I have missed, please enlighten me. A little maintenance goes a long way, and so do our Toyotas! Cheers!
