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Old 23rd August 2016, 09:36   #1
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Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

I purchased a flood hit but running Toyota Etios GD SP for a relative and ended up keeping the car after the relative chickened out after a small breakdown.

Summary of observations:

1.The car was flooded almost till the dash top but the engine or the gear box were not affected by water ; the car is still on the pre-flood engine oil but transmission oil was changed as part of restoration.

2.There was no impact to the ECU or the ABS motor.The ABS motor coupler showed no moisture or dirt

Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-absmotorcoupler.jpg

3.AC Blower lobe assembly bearing was found kaput; replaced the assembly

4.The BCM-cum-speedo assembly needed replacement

5.The carpet remained soaked wet even after eight months post flood - this was causing some foul smell in the cabin.

6.Airbag circuit observed working fine

7.Boot had negligible dirt inside ; there was no mud deposition anywhere near the rear apron joints.

8.The radiator fan was vibrating badly with vibrations seeping into the cabin too

9.Except the ac blower motor bearing , no other bearing made any noise.


THE FIRST DEBACLE

While driving the car after taking delivery , we stopped to fill in diesel and after that to fill air ; after the air fill , the engine would crank but not fire.

Called Lanson Toyota but their mobile unit wasn't able to check in situ , so asked the car to be towed to the workshop which we did using a Tata ACE.

Diagnosis showed Injector #1 failure and Fuel injection module malfunction for which Toyota asked for the ECU and injector#1 to be replaced which was 75k.

I paid just the scan and check charges of Rs.1035 and got the car out of the service center.

The guy from whom I got the car is a motor mechanic.He came and got the engine started .

The cause of engine not firing was a bad injector#1.He specialises only in Toyota Etios and had a spare injector with him ; put that in and primed the nozzle diesel feed line and then tightened the injector nut and voila , the engine fired.

He wasn't satisfied with the performance of the engine so swapped that injector with a good one from his other car, and we thus ended up starting up both my car and his car on the roadside in the night. We started at 8pm and finished the job at 11:30pm just outside Lanson Toyota Pallikaranai.

Here is a pic of the old injector
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-injector1.jpg

CHECK POINTS DURING RESTORATION

1.Engine and Transmission

The engine oil was in perfect shape so let it be ; drained the transmission oil and expected it to be like emulsion but it was sans water
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-gearoil.jpg


2.Radiator Fan

The vibrating fan made us believe that it was the motor ; however some fundamental knowledge of roto balancing made me look at the fan itself and here is what we found on the fan hub
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-fan.jpg
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-fanmuck.jpg

The fan blade and hub was cleaned with water and refitted ; bingo - no vibrations

3.AC Controls backlights not working

The bulbs were found fused ; tried getting them but nobody in Chennai had them. These are midget sized bulbs with a small holder.

Decided to build the lighting using LED strips , spliced the backlight wires and attached them and the LED lights worked

4.AC Ducts

Removed the dash center and side panels - There was a lot of dried mud on the outside of the AC ducts ; cleaned it all off first with a damp cloth and then disinfected the area using SURGICAL SPIRIT (Yes-Surgical Spirit).

The inside of the AC ducts were reasonably clean but disinfected them as well using surgical spirit.


5.Carpet

Removed the seats and the carpet and yukkkk - there was this strong stench that emanated from the floor thanks to soaked foam pads.

Eight months of stagnant water was unbearable. I was in no mood to take pics and just discarded the foam pads. The carpet was like this.
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-carpetbefore.jpg

Split the vinyl and the fabric carpets and cleaned them independently with Lizol solution and allowed them to dry in the Chennai sun.

Followed up with a vinyl dressing for the vinyl carpet.

Refitted the carpets after providing a layer of 10mm EPE foam on the floorpan(remember , the soaked foam pads were discarded)


6.Floorpan

Cleaned the floor out with Lizol in water - it took three rounds(bucketfuls) to clean one quarter.
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-floorpanwide.jpg

Here is how muddy the water was after the second round
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-muddywater.jpg

7.Door Pads and Doors

Removed , cleaned and refitted the doorpads. The power window switches were all fine.

The inside of the doors had approx. 50gms of dust at the bottom which I removed through the door drain holes using a soft brush

8.EPS Control module and Immobiliser assembly

The motor was serviced but the EPS module and the immobiliser were replaced - since the immo was replaced , both the existing keys had to be reprogrammed.

9.ICE


The JVC HU had disintegrated ; replaced it with a Pio X1890UB with two new 6.5 inch speakers and two tweeters.The stock double cone 5.25 inchers were working but the stock tweeters weren't ; decided to replace all of em.

10.Rear Seat

One of the mounts had broken ; it was a pain to repair this using Fewikwik and Mseal and refit the seat but then finally grease was used as a lube to help the seat mounts slot in properly.
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-seat.jpg

11.Seat covers and seats were intact - the seat slide rails were just serviced using WD40.


THE FINISHED PRODUCT

W -I -P

Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-interiorwip.jpg

Final

Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-interiorafter2.jpg
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-enginebay.jpg
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-finalview2.jpg
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-finalview.jpg

I did up my petrol Premier Padmini in 1998 post floods in Surat but this new gen oil burner took a lot lot more effort .

No corner was left uninspected during the process of inspection and rectification.

I must thank my trusted FNG duo of Senthil and Nandakumar for helping me through this effort.

The first emergency described at the start of this thread led me to my first visit ever to an auth. service center viz.Lanson Toyota Pallikaranai.I was impressed with their professionalism , particularly the help rendered by the SA Bharath Kumar.

My confidence in Toyota has risen significantly after seeing how well the car held up against flood damage even after 8 months of being idle.
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Old 23rd August 2016, 09:49   #2
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re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Nice job

It appears restoring flood-affected cars is now an interesting project for some, your Etios being the second on our forum (the first being this Getz).

Good to see a small positive outcome of the Chennai floods for petrolheads, and better still to see these cars being put back on the road. If these were America, they would have been junked for sure.
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Old 23rd August 2016, 10:29   #3
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Quote:
Originally Posted by arunphilip View Post
Nice job

It appears restoring flood-affected cars is now an interesting project for some, your Etios being the second on our forum (the first being this Getz).

If these were America, they would have been junked for sure.
Thanks Arun.

Actually swami69 also has shared his post flood experiences with his Corolla , so my project is no.3 on the forum AFAIK.

The old Indian habit of "jugaad" management is why we are able to develop midpath solutions and complete jobs at a lower cost.

MODS : Here is one more pic of the final finished product.Please insert this towards the end of my first post.Sorry for the trouble.
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-p_20160818_095353.jpg
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Old 23rd August 2016, 12:28   #4
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Awesome! That floor pan looks as good as new with nary a hint of rust even though the car was flooded and the carpet soaked wet with that vinyl mat helping to keep the moisture in!! That's a sign of superior quality sheet metal and good corrosion prevention coating at the manufacturing stage. This just reinforces my trust in Toyota.

How did you clean the AC ducts using surgical spirit; Did you fill the ducts with IPA and drain it or was it using a rug soaked in IPA?

How much did you pay for this flood damaged car?
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Old 23rd August 2016, 13:31   #5
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

^^ Thank You Sankar.

It was quite relieving to see a shining floorpan at the end of the marathon cleaning effort - It took me 7 hours in all to clean the floorpan and the carpet ( with two 30 min breaks) ; and my muscles were all groaning the next day.

Post EPS service , EPS module , PW service , BCM+ meter , and with a new immobilizer I ended at 3.6.

Today it stands at 4,03,779 including a full year's insurance ,change of transmission oil,change of brake pads,brake fluid,fan motor,blower lobe assembly,tool kit, ICE ,labour charges,half a tank of diesel, coolant top up , and all consumables.

Four tyres are ship shape and the only one job that I have to do is build a tow hook , which is just not available anywhere.

I used a mix of dosing the duct with IPA and dousing a cloth in IPA and cleaning it.Worked wonders but I kind of got sozzled at the end.
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Old 23rd August 2016, 14:58   #6
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

I stay close to vigsom sir's place and have first hand experienced his restoration process over the past couple of weeks. Trust me, the end product looks nothing like a flood affected vehicle. The sincerity and effort that this man has put in to this process is unfathomable.

I bow down to thee, sir!

P.S: This thread deserves to be highlighted on the homepage just so that it serves as a primer to anyone looking to restore a flooded vehicle on his own. There are some fine points (example, surgical spirit for duct cleaning) that will surely help someone somewhere. Mods, please consider?

Last edited by srinath.s : 23rd August 2016 at 15:06.
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Old 24th August 2016, 17:59   #7
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Quote:
Originally Posted by vigsom View Post
Today it stands at 4,03,779 including a full year's insurance ,change of transmission oil,change of brake pads,brake fluid,fan motor,blower lobe assembly,tool kit, ICE ,labour charges,half a tank of diesel, coolant top up , and all consumables.

Four tyres are ship shape and the only one job that I have to do is build a tow hook , which is just not available anywhere.
Well worth the effort A GD costs close to 10L on road now!

Why do you want to build a towhook? What happened to the OE towing points on the car?
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Old 24th August 2016, 18:31   #8
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

^^ I know how badly stuck I was when the car wouldn't start.The towing vehicle was ready but the tow tool wasn't there in the tool kit.

This tool is threaded on one side and has a hook on the other side.The threaded portion fits into the frame of the car.There are no other tow points.

Managed to plead with Toyota and get one on loan to tow the vehicle into their workshop.

Having been in this situation once , the tow tool has become a non negotiable item .I have bought a TVS 22mm *130mm bolt and will have to build threads of the right pitch through a machine shop.

I tried using the Ritz tow tool but that is of a smaller dia.
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Old 24th August 2016, 19:56   #9
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Quote:
Originally Posted by vigsom View Post
^^ I know how badly stuck I was when the car wouldn't start.The towing vehicle was ready but the tow tool wasn't there in the tool kit.

This tool is threaded on one side and has a hook on the other side.The threaded portion fits into the frame of the car.There are no other tow points.
....
Can't you just procure that item from Toyota?

Fantastic restoration by the way. Mighty impressive!
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Old 24th August 2016, 21:41   #10
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

^^ Thank You SDP.

I am actually trying to source this from some sources ; let us see.

The whole tool kit was missing , managed the jack handle and the wheel spanner without a hitch.
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Old 25th August 2016, 06:37   #11
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Fantastic Work Vigsom and the car looks great. It is for sure a rewarding experience to get these things done.

Swami
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Old 25th August 2016, 09:52   #12
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

This is amazing. A car with its engine submerged in water is back to life, with no work done on the engine. That one injector was pretty much all that was replaced.

Puzzles me though, how water never reached the insides of the engine and did not affect the many components that support the running of the engine.

How much did this car cost you at the auctions?
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Old 25th August 2016, 11:05   #13
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

That is an awesome job Vigsom. What is the current insurance status? Have they mentioned that it is a flood affected vehicle and is there any restrictions in future claim processes?
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Old 25th August 2016, 11:17   #14
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

^^ Thank you Swami and Sandeep.

Swami , one must have the josh to roll up one's sleeves and complete the mission ; and the feeling of accomplishment just cannot be described.I am sure you'd have felt the same when your Corolla engine fired.

By the way , I managed to get a tow hook so my project is now officially 100% complete.

My final landed cost has been shared elsewhere on this thread.I didn't go to the auction.The acquisition was indirect and through an independent motor mechanic.

Saw a 2014 Amaze AT , 2014 Swift vxi AT , 2012 Innova GX , 2014 Eon Magna plus , all in operation post flood.The Swift floorpan was also quite clean.Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-p_20160825_092823.jpg


The AT oil in the Amaze looked like flavoured milk.Pics of the dipstick and the AT fluid filler hole are attached.
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-p_20160825_092214.jpg
Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios-p_20160825_092227.jpg
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Old 25th August 2016, 12:38   #15
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Re: Restoration Report: Flood-affected Toyota Etios

Quote:
Originally Posted by rama75 View Post
What is the current insurance status? Have they mentioned that it is a flood affected vehicle and is there any restrictions in future claim processes?
Hi Rama,

The original insurance was closed.I got the car without insurance and would have got a Liability Only (Third Party) policy ,but United India surveyed the car and were happy to insure the car for 3.75lacs(IDV) .Premium was 12.5k with the Own Damage basic at 2.2% of IDV.

There is no mention of the car being a hit car.Anyways , everything is working so I am not worried.
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