Fixing a potential harness-damage problem
Underside of engine with air-dam plastic removed. Amazing how much more
understandable everything is under here once it's exposed! Arrow indicates
where the starter-motor hole and blockoff plate are.
Eep! The M/G control harness passes very close to this sharp point of metal,
and in fact was touching here before I pushed it temporarily away. Turns
out that the metal tab is not supposed to be there at all...
The blockoff plate removed, along with the little curved plastic filler.
That's a piece of the vibration damper / flywheel visible, which turns past
the hole when the crank pulley is rotated ... providing evidence that
there really are parts that go round somewhere inside all those housings.
The blockoff plate remounted the *correct* way. The dimple rests slightly
into the starter hole, and the offending metal tab is now way up THERE
safely out of harm's way. The dimple and bolt-holes all line up too. The
bolts are largish because they're part of the engine-to-transaxle mounting,
and attention should be paid to correct tightening torque.
An excerpt from the '04 repair manual, "Transaxle Assy: Replacement", in
file ileaf/04toyrm/04toypdf/04rmsour/2004/04priusf/22/212fp/x040001.pdf and
manual page 22-16, showing not only the plate installed the *right* way
tab-up, but also an inconsistency in the dimple-to-bolt-hole spacing. The
inset clearly shows the hole in the block as offset slightly upward, but the
assembly drawing has it incorrectly shown offset downward. The assembly-line
techs at the factory [be they human or otherwise] were evidently given the
wrong half of some conflicting instruction.
I have received independent confirmation around September 2005 that this
can and *has* caused motor-control wiring problems in '04 and '05 Priuses.
It is unknown at this time what Toyota is doing about it, but it's clearly an
SSC-able issue whether it's actively cutting into owners' harnesses or not.
_H* 050908, revised 051012