P2440 the cheap way

Greetings friends! Been a while.
I'm chiming in with a short one here -- Our Taco popped P2440 (Secondary Air Injection System Switching Valve Stuck Open) just before re-upping registration, and I figured I'd share my little journey!

First stop was here, where I found out about a "Service Campaign" addressing the fault. Printed it and took it to the local dealer in Union City! Unfortunately, the service advisor at the dealership advised me that since my truck is an 09, it does not qualify.

I followed up with more reading: something about a block-off kit. But to the tune of $500, I figured I'd save that for a last resort.

I checked our local Pull-A-Part, and while they didn't have our Tacoma, 05-15, they did have some Tundras and 4Runners. I pocketed that information and considered myself finally greenlit to take stuff apart!

Here's what I got!


Icky-sticky. It was at this point that I remembered having some kind of wet, deteriorated debris stuck in the air pump's intake when I first inspected the truck. "Trash goes in the trashcan" I said. No, I wasn't quoting Seth Greene's recounting of meeting Bill Murray by way of being picked up and placed into a nearby receptacle. He stole the line from me.

Now a little deeper:


You can see here that I didn't realize the reed valve assembly just popped out with a light tap. Oh no! I snapped those bolts with all the intensity of one of our dogs kicking me in the crotch, which I might add, is a humbling part of my daily routine.
If you do this, don't snap the bolts. Just tap the reed valve sandwich out. Then you'll be able to heat the threadlocker on the back of those little screws and remove them without hassle.

I'll skip my drilling the screws out. Can't get those hours back, and they won't help anyone.



∆ Thar she blows. Endlessly. Because she's stuck open.

******Important Note!
I hardly drove the truck once the fault appeared and, while at the dealership, it had the audacity to self-resolve LITERALLY as I was cranking the truck to show the service advisor. While I may have been made to seem crazy, the event did inform me that the valve could still function, and was thus worth working on.

Moving on. Time to clean! (note that I removed the gasket!)



I soaked the valve side of the contraption in the very last remnants of my ethanol free gasoline. I mean, it's literally got stuff in it purposed to clean carbon-y valves, soooo.

Here's some results:



I'll show more and more in subsequent posts! I think I've pressed my luck far enough with attempted image inserts. Stay tuned!

OH WAIT! One more thing! It was at this point that a raccoon appeared in our yard creating a completely organic break in work:

 

Alright, time to add a little more meat to the soup.


The above image shows the reed valve sandwich disassembled and all cleaned up. It also shows a lot of unnecessary tools that came into play when trying to tap out screws.

Oh, I did hit all related fasteners with WD40 before attempting disassembly, and while that did help, not so much as my having apparently disassembled them all at some forgotten point. I found several metric fasteners that were grade 10.9 and took a 13mm socket. That's basically my signature. This time I added some "grade" 12.9 fasteners.



My first cleaning of the valve with a dish scouring brush after a 30 minute soak in gas.



Here it is after three short soaks and brushings, finally being energizing to open the valve, and then scraped. Prolly could have saved time by scraping after the first soak.



Here's me with a clean valve, doing assembly with some new fasteners and nuts. Believe it or not, nuts actually fit *just barely* to sandwich the sandwich back together.



See??



Now there's a clean reed valve!! Just some elbow grease with a scouring brush, then some more with a very fine scuff pad and wd40, finish with rubbing alcohol wipe.



Added some silicone to the rubber gasket (on both sides). Afterwards, I realized that the silicone I used could only handle 500°F intermittently. Ragrets. But it seems to be holding nonetheless. If you employ this trick though, I recommend a high temp silicone -- as high as you can get. Even if the valve isn't open all the time, it's still right on the header.



Now, finally, it's reinstalled. I blew out the air pump with the blower nozzle of a little compressor, then slapped on an Amazon filter.

The code did not recur during today's drive. Its almost ready for emissions, just waiting on the evap system self-test to finish.

What'cha think, eh?

To top it off, I also finished adding integrated smoke/co detectors to our house in preparation for an inspection (we're doing a new main panel and increasing our service!)

 

Nice work! Too bad you didn't have access to a sonic cleaner, it would have made the dirty part of that work allot easier.

 

You'd spoil me!!

I tell yuh, man... An 80 gallon compressor, a tig welding kit so I could start learnin', a media blasting rig, sonic cleaner.. The grocery list is so long. Still swingin' the $100 husky mechanics toolkit my dad got me at 18!

I just lucked out and snagged a deal for my first compact impact driver and compact drill. Came with two batteries and a charger to the tune of $100, courtesy of Lowes and Flex tools. Still riding that high! The old Ryobi couldn't fit between wall studs with a fluted bit and these charge in 30 mins flat! Now I don't have to worry about a dying battery when using a wire wheel to clean bolt threads.