How to change spark plugs on V6 Toyota and Lexus 2GR-FE 3.5L engine

hello and welcome to the car care nut channel in today's video i'm going to show you guys how to replace your spark plugs on the 3.5 liter v6 toyota engine the 2gr fe before we get started if you're new to the channel welcome consider subscribing to the channel check out some of my other videos and if you're a returning subscriber thank you so much for watching another one of my videos and without further ado let's dig in [Music] so a small overview before we get started this engine has iridium spark plugs so the replacement interval is every 120 000 miles or 10 years whichever comes first this job for most diy mechanics seems to be like a daunting task a difficult one however i'm here to tell you there's actually easy after watching this video you'll find out why because if you know the right steps and what needs to come off and what doesn't you're going to do this in no time and you'll be on your way saving a lot of money from having a professional like myself do this you will need some parts other than the spark plugs themselves because we will pull the plenum out you will need three gaskets you will also need the throttle body gasket having said that let's get to work so the first step is to remove the cowl the cowl is in the way it's the upper piece and the lower piece some models like your 2006 to 2012 rav4 v6 you do not need to remove this because you have enough room to get in the back but most models you're going to remove this they all remove the same similar not exactly the same but i will give you all the info for the other models as we go so the first thing in all models is you're going to want to remove the wipers wiper arms always going to be a 14 millimeter nut some of them will have a cap you pop the cap in the case of the 2008 highlander that we're working on today it does not have the cap so let me go ahead and remove the wiper arms so when you remove the wiper arm sometimes they get stuck here's a little trick for you where the joint is put your hand like this and push it down and that'll release it don't push down with too much force when you push the glass but that'll release them push pull your arm out pull the other one out now most of these cowls will have two clips one here one there some of them will have it in the front some won't so always look in this area in the corners for a clip so let me pop the clips on this one and then we'll continue if these clips are missing you can replace them you can buy them from the dealership or any parts store now we're going to remove the top piece of the cowl but first before you do that you're going to have the attachment rubber seal on the side you're going to want to disconnect that from the cowl before you pull it out because then it'll just get pulled out now that we've got it this far the cowl is still secured in place if you look underneath here you're going to find a series of clips that you need to push in in some cases unfortunately this is the first thing that i will tell you about bad mechanics when they just rip this thing out and break all these clips doesn't make an issue because the hood pushes on this but that's just not the right way to do it you could just spend a few minutes push these clips in and then the whole cow will pop out that was not too hard now you're gonna grab the cowl and pull it towards you this cowl right here is clipped into the glass so you're gonna hold it and pull it out like so and i'll show you where it's clipped in do you see those clips like this one right here that goes underneath the glass to hold the cowl in place so let's put pull our cowl to the side now that the cowl is removed i would like to make one caution when we remove the bottom piece you're working very close proximity to the glass be very careful don't drop things on the glass and you can easily damage the glass at this point so be pay special attention to that the other thing i want you to pay special attention to is the models with an antenna this antenna just goes inside the glass and that's where your radio antenna is you're going to be careful with these wires don't pull on them hard and i'll show you a trick as we go how to deal with them before we can remove the lower part of the cowl we're going to need to remove the wiper motor now the wiper motor will have one wire and a few 10 millimeter bolts this will always be the case in all of them but the first thing we need to do this car has a antenna that goes through the glass here's the wire for that by the way this wire doesn't have the clip that usually goes here that means this class is aftermarket which is not a problem but just letting you know how you can catch that other than the label on the side we're going to disconnect this connector so the best way to protect this wire is just fold it back on the glass put a small piece of masking tape now it's out of your way when we take this lower cowl we're going to be working close in this area so this is out of your way now now we're going to disconnect the connector on the wiper motor there's a few clips you can see them right here for the harness because we're gonna get this harness out of the way there's that one now that you got your harness out pull it out of the way now we're going to remove the wiper motor 10 millimeter bolts some will have three some will have two some will have four that depends on your model but this one have four when you pull this wiper motor out be very careful because it's very close to the glass you pull it out with force and you hit this glass it's cracked and now the savings for doing this job yourself are all gone so be careful when you pull it let's remove the cowl now on most models you're going to have a bunch of 10 millimeter bolts across some of them will have two of the three strut mount nuts on there as well holding it down so let's take them out and move on now that we've removed everything we're going to just pull the towel up being careful that it doesn't pop and hit the glass because remember the glass is very important to protect at this point go to the other side pull it off and then we're gonna carefully lock it outside and off she goes okay now we have all the space open let's pull the engine cover off we're going to remove the intake including the upper intake box and the hose going to the throttle body so some of these models will have different hoses we're going to start disconnecting the vacuum hoses you can mark them if you want but they only go one way just in cases like this little guy right here try not to drop it because if you drop it then it's going to throw you off but for the most part they only go one way you can't really cross them most of this vacuum hose mess is for the active mount in the front if you have it then we're going to disconnect our pcv hose right here don't lose the clamp we're going to unplug our mass airflow connector now you have two styles some of them will have two bolts here some of them will have snap clips depends on the different model the idea is just like you replace your air filter we're gonna pull this housing off now this one is missing the bolt right here i will fix that off camera then you're going to undo the 10 millimeter here for the clamp and folks before we continue i already see a problem here somebody's been here and this hose is routed incorrectly see this is this is the kind of stuff that just drives me up a wall hoses need to be routed in the right place now this hose is pinched underneath the throttle body and it's actually supposed to go over and through this and to the purge valve we'll fix that when we take it apart but in your case i hope your car is the first spark plug replacement so it'll be running right here you're going to undo this clamp right here and pull the hose up so let's pull this and we'll fix that when we go back together now your air filter is right here if if you're replacing it this would be a good time we're not doing that to this car let's pull the throttle body out so here's the first thing that i always see with the throttle bodies people undo the coolant hoses and now you got a coolant mess now you got to bleed the coolant so here's something all throttle bodies will have four bolts or will have two bolts and two nuts depends on the style but they're all very similar we're going to remove those but i want you to pay attention to one thing there is a on this bolt there is a little bracket when we go back together let's remember to put that bracket then this bracket holds the wire for the throttle body so let's take these four and take the throttle body out four bolts in this case and we're gonna pull the throttle body now the cool thing is you can just lay it off to the side and leave it it's not going anywhere it's not gonna damage anything we don't need to disconnect the coolant hoses let's pull the gasket and that's the first gasket we're going to replace now that we've removed that let's see what happened with our hose here now our hose was supposed to go over and went under so it was slightly pinched here let's put this one to the side so now we're going to start working on the intake plenum this intake plenum has a few bolts in the front but the most ones that people struggle with are the ones in the back so there's two 12 millimeters one on this side one on the other side the reason you remove the throttle body the way we did is to get access to the first one which is very easy it's actually right here as you can see in this video it's super easy to get to we're gonna get a ratcheting 12 millimeter wrench i'm to take it out here it goes let's move to the other side so now comes the fun part the part that most people get stuck on not removing this connector you're going to want to remove this for the variable plenum but the fun part is removing the bracket in the back now i will not even pretend to be able to film this where the bracket is exactly it is an l-shaped bracket one of the sides bolt directly to the plenum one of the sides bolts to the top of the valve cover now i do have this picture when the engine was out of the car so you can see exactly what you're taking off that you can see here that's the bolt we're going to reach but it is such a odd angle that the only way i found that you're going to get to it is by using a 12 millimeter swivel socket now this is an impact swivel you can use a regular swivel with an extension about this height so we're gonna position it in there use my little light and this goes perfectly on it you can see the top of the socket of the extension right here so let me let me break it loose that's broken loose now now i'm going to pull my my socket out also by the way guys it really helps to have a locking extension here so this wouldn't go flying off if you drop this or you drop the bolt don't get frustrated this is gonna happen with this until you've done a couple hundred of these you're not gonna be as efficient with them but it's not hard you can get to it you just need the right tools and now i'm going to get the rest of the bolt by hand there it goes i had to position myself in the front because the camera is standing where i usually work so this is uh made it a little bit more difficult but here's the bolt it's out now let's pull the rest of them now we're going to remove the last bulge for the plenum there's two 10 millimeter nuts one here one there and there's four five millimeter hex just like this so let me go ahead and remove those you want to remove the nuts first to even out the load because this is a plastic intake so i'm gonna remove the outside ones first and get the bolts out for the magnet now before we remove the intake platinum we're gonna disconnect our pcv line right here like so and then another line we're going to disconnect is our purge line right here just like so push it to the side now this is all nice and loose now when you pull this there's one more line connected to it on the booster you can leave it connected just kind of swing the plenum out of your way or you can just disconnect it i'm gonna go ahead and disconnect it so i can show you guys the l bracket now if you follow the video the way i i have set it up you're going to pull the plenum up until it clears the stud and then you're going to pull it towards the front of the car and the reason for that is you're trying to clear this bracket from underneath the harness so folks here is that l bracket this is the bolt that we took out you can take this bolt out instead that's another way to do this but for me i always find it much easier just take this one out pull the whole bracket and here's where the other bolt goes right here and here's your intake platinum folks here are the three gaskets that we're going to replace now the minute you remove the platinum you have open intake manifold you need to cover this as soon as possible if you drop anything in here saving yourself a few hundred bucks will turn into a big nightmare because this falls directly inside the engine and if the valve is open and something goes inside the cylinder we have a much bigger problem so the first thing you're going to take a few shop towels just cover the area you can use i don't like folks using paper towel and just jamming it in the holes i don't like that i've never liked that that's just my preference i always put chopped towels or you can even use masking tape don't use any kind of other tape to cover the holes because it leaves the residue but masking tape does not but for this job to make it nice and simple just use shop towels cover the hole have this pcv hose which we're going to talk about hold it and you're good now let's go ahead and replace the rear spark plugs okay so we have the harness in our way right here we're gonna want to remove that or loosen it up a little bit so we can pull our coils out so the first thing is you're gonna remove the bolt on the side to free up the harness a little bit more then we're going to remove this bolt folks one thing i will mention about this wire configuration not all of these v6s will be the same some of them will be much easier this is one of the harder ones and i wanted to show you the harder one the easier ones will will just have less harness and harness will be out of your way where you can pull the coils and do everything without having to remove as much also going to remove this last one over here this point your harness is a little move better movable so you can maneuver it around the coils now let's disconnect our coils and i showed you a trick in a previous video on how to disconnect these connectors this is really going to work i'll show you the video right here because of the access if you get a 90 degree pick it works really good to pull these connectors out you're just going to pull the tab and pull the connector out so now all our three coils are disconnected let's take the bolts for the coils they're 10 millimeter [Applause] now that the bolts are out and the connectors are out you're going to move this harness left and right until you can pull the coils out and as always when you pull the coil make sure you pull the seal with it i'll show you that seal once i got this one out here's that seal that i told you about don't forget this if it stays on the cylinder head pull it out and keep it with the coil pull the other two coils now this last coil if you have this configuration of harness you can't pull the harness far enough and the coil will just hit the harness as soon as you pull it out if you have a hard time pulling the coil out just get a screwdriver or just to put release it from the spark plug now if you have this harness configuration it's going to be a little bit hard so reach in there and disconnect the cam sensor connector that'll free up the harness you see how free up this is a connector that we disconnected don't forget to plug it back when we go back together pull the coil it's a tight space but it's nothing impossible here we go now i'm using a 5 8 spark plug socket that is swivel i will leave one in the description of this video where you can buy this now this is a snap-on one i will not leave the link for this one because this one is too expensive for diy but i'll leave one similar now you're gonna want an extension preferably locking let's take the first spark plug out i'm gonna go behind the harness and here's the first spark plug let's get the other two spark plug number two is out let's remove the last one in the back here's the last spark plug now i've discussed spark plugs on a previous video on the four cylinder but this if you can see it this is a healthy spark plug this is actually not an original spark plug it's been replaced before this car has a lot of miles but if you have a spark plug you're going to find a mark right at the tip of the spark plug that's how you know if they are original or been replaced okay so installation when you install these spark plugs do not put nics do not put anything on them make sure you get original spark plugs that's what i recommend if you want to go after market that's up to you however the originals you're replacing them every 120 i think it's not worth it going after market so let's go ahead and install these spark plugs you always talk to specifications the torque specification for the 2g rfe engine is 13 foot pounds that's across the board so let let me go install these three spark plugs and torque them and then we'll reassemble everything okay now reinstall your coils folks just like all the spark plug videos that i've done this the coil position doesn't matter they're all the same as long as you don't forget the seal make sure the seals are on there before you install these don't forget your connector that you took off for the cam sensor in the back plug it back in plug all your coils install the bolts for the coils tighten the bolts now let's reinstall our harness this goes over the stud this is here and that's there install the bolts tighten them up don't forget that bolt on the side if your car had that for the harness and now you're going to want to double check all your work make sure all your coils are plugged in any connectors you took out are plugged in your harness completely secured because now we're gonna move towards putting the plenum back folks before we continue i wanna bring your attention to this this is the pcv hose not the pcb valve not like the old v6 or the pcb valve used to be right there but i want you to pay close attention to its location obviously it can't go here because that's where your plenum is going to bolt up but don't put it all the way in the back make sure it goes right here right next very close to the plenum but between the dampener for the fuel rail and the edge of the intake manifold where the plenum is going to bolt up right there that is the correct spot for it because i've seen a lot of people that go like this and then it gets pinched and then you'll have serious problems with oil leaks so make sure this is right there i know it looks off and it looks wrong like where is this bolt to that's where it goes so make sure it's like that when you install the plenum now before you tighten your plenum down you're going to double check that so let's go ahead and prep our plenum so here's our plenum let's take our three old gaskets install the new three ones they only go one way so nothing special about them all three of them are the same do not if you ever buy ones from the dealership do not install black plenum gaskets these are old you should some dealerships will still sell them don't accept them they should be orange like these now let's pull the towels out very lightly clean the surface make sure you're pushing away not inside if there's any dirt in there you want the dirt to fall away not into the cylinder as much as possible now you're gonna feed your manifold in that l bracket goes in first until you line it up like that now let's talk about the torque for the bolts hand install your bolts before tightening this manifold you're going to want to start the bolts in the brackets so let me go do that now this bolt on the back is going to be a little bit tricky to install you're going to drop it a few times and that's okay this takes a little bit of practice in doing this over and over to really be able to just do it from the first shot without dropping the bolt if you're going to drop it if you you're going to move put your hand in feel the the opening and then just start it you're going to keep trying left right hand until you find the spot where you can put your hand through and you can have good control so you can start that bolt like for me this is the approach angle and my face now is actually facing the back of the car you're gonna as a diy mechanic and professional mechanics most of the time we work with the feel not by looking you can't put your hand in this angle and your face at the same time it's gonna be very difficult so let me start the other side the other side is the same thing you're gonna reach in just start it don't tighten it at this point now we're gonna tighten our plenum bolts now these are gonna be for the bolts you're gonna have 13 foot-pounds and your torque spec for the small ones is 12 for the nuts so let me tighten those and we'll continue and you're going to want start with the middle ones so don't tighten the nuts first and go in this crisscross pattern now after you've snuck down tighten down your uh intake go to the back tighten your brackets and guys whatever you do when you tighten this one do not over tighten it the one in the backs because if you're going to be the one taking this this apart again to do this job again you're going to be sorry if you over tighten this right now and if you're not doing it then be kind to the next mechanic we're going to use our same swivel socket we're gonna start it on there don't forget your connector for the variable lens intake by the way folks this is a pcv valve if you ever wanna replace it this would be a good time to do that we're not doing this on this car so plug your pcv hose back in plug your purge line back in plug your this vacuum line came off actually sure you track your vacuum lines when they fall i'm used to this but always you're going to have one vacuum line here the big big line for the pcb and then the little one for the purge valve so those are all the whole vacuum hoses you're going to have going to the plenum having said that let's go install our throttle body we're going to install our new gasket for the throttle body you're going to see this tab at the top make sure that goes in first with all the bolts folks this would be a good opportunity to clean the throttle body we're not going to clean it on this car because that was not requested with the job but one thing i don't want you to forget when we're when we're reinstalling the throttle body which i always see forgotten sure your bracket this bracket right here goes through the last bolt on the corner and that bracket is connected to the wire for the throttle body the throttle body torque spec is seven foot pound folks anything with plastic you want to torque down if you're not used to the torque specs for them one thing i want you to make sure not to forget is the purge line and the best way i do this is just roll it over the throttle body from here so you wouldn't get it pinched like it was before on this car let's go and put our intake and move to the other side plug your mass airflow all your vacuum hoses and then making sure this guy is free we're going to install it now this line is going to go actually all the way from this side and up and here and then lastly onto the purge valve so that's quite a difference from how it was run before last but not least if you decided to remove the the hose for the the vacuum hose for the brake booster reinstall it folks i'm gonna pick this up and show you a few things at this point it's all done don't forget to tighten this clamp bolt on your your air filter housing you're gonna go over and double check everything the main things are you tighten these down your throttle body is tight and your intake is secure from here to the mass airflow you do not want to introduce unmetered air because any of these gaskets even if these gaskets rolled usually you'll see the edges right here coming out if you don't see them you know that you forgot a gasket if you don't see the top of the throttle body you forgot that gasket make sure your brackets in the back are done make sure all your hoses are routed the right way if you're in doubt before you take it apart take a picture if you have any questions about these and if you have a different model than this one then something doesn't look right leave a comment i'm more than happy to help you with what i can now having said that we're gonna do the front three now the front three should be very simple ten millimeter ten millimeter ten millimeter connector connector connector and replace the three spark plugs that is the hard side i always want you to start with the back side because that is the hard side this is child's play after you've done all that so now i'm gonna swap these out real quick we're gonna wrap up this video so i'm gonna do this side i'm gonna show you how it's actually done in an automotive shop let's install our cowl back on one thing i will say about the installation of the cowl you do you want the wheels on the ground when you install this if you are have the wheels over the ground and you install this you can have noise that's just the way they are make sure the wheels are on the ground when you install this and tighten it so let's let me go ahead and do that now let's install our wiper motor let's install the harness get your antenna back connect your wiper motor now let's install the upper part of the cowl i want you to pay attention to this one there's something that you need to know about this remember how we said i pulled it away from the glass so you're going to line it up and make sure it's tucked in the glass so you're going to start one side then go to the other side and kind of work it in until it snaps just like that push it in like so you're going to line up your clips so this this is going to move side to side so you're going to line up your clips clip them all in same thing for the other side there we go clip the apron covers back same on this side put your clips back last but not least is the wipers so in this car it's a little bit dirty so i can see where the wipers go because if you install this like this we're going to have a problem so you're going to want to line it up where it used to be now unfortunately this glass is not original to this car toyota glass will have a black dot in the so there's a blackened part right here with a wiper sit if you look all the way at the end you're going to see a dot inside the black part that's where the wipers line up when they're in the rest position just thought you guys would know that and this one is kind of easy to tell because i can see where the wipers start and stop in the dirt but in your case if your car is clean which i hope it is because we are car care nuts you're gonna see that black mark if you don't see the black mark and your car is clean you're gonna have to trial and error this until you get it right basically you can loosen it change the position tighten it try it turn the wipers on make sure everything is working right then you're all set tighten your wipers down you're all set put your engine cover back and that's one job completed so folks as you can see this is not really a bad job at all it just it's just nuts and bolts and trying to figure out these tricks and ins and outs of where everything is and that's the most time consuming thing it's not really taking the nuts and bolts out this is very simple not really difficult double check everything make sure you do everything with calm and don't rush things torque what needs to be torqued down make sure everything's tight and don't forget hoses and the main you've seen this car was just brought to me to do this job and we found a hose that was misroaded because the spark plugs were done before that was likely when this happened when the last spark plug replacement was so take your time it's not hard just now you know the ways and ins and outs of it take your time get it done and you're all set i hope this video was helpful and informative i hope you learned something new if you have any questions about this feel free to leave a comment i'll be more than happy to help if you like this video consider giving it a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider subscribing to the channel my channel is dedicated to toyota owners diy information everything that i can share with you guys from my experience and until the next video guys may the lord bless you and keep you and you have a wonderful day

Channel: The Car Care Nut

Views: 42,250

Rating: 4.9383912 out of 5

Keywords: How to change spark plugs on V6 Toyota, v6 spark plug replacement, how to replace toyota spark plugs, toyota sienna spark plugs, toyota camry v6 spark plug replacement, how to replace toyota v6, toyota v6 engine, lexus v6 engine, 2gr-fe, toyota maintenance, toyota mechanic, how to, car repair, toyota diy, toyota spark plugs, how to remove wiper motor, toyota diy repair, lexus maintenance, lexus mechanic, change spark plugs, toyota how to, lexus how to

Id: ING-RK7NJ-c

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021