Written: June - July, 2023
Pull the EFI fuse. That removes power from the ECU so there's no way the motor can start, and the injectors won't fire and drench the cylinders with fuel.
I did not do this. What some people do, and the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a bad idea. The idea is to:
Just the fact that you have to pull the rear seat to do this makes it ridiculous given that you can just pull the EFI fuse.
The idea here is to relieve the fuel pressure, as a measure to avoid having the vehicle start if you do the starter bump method.
There are much better ways (like pulling the EFI fuse). I did not do either of these, and I bumped the starter over 10 times (which did not break my bolt loose). The engine never started. Maybe I was lucky.
The idea is that without fuel, if you do the starter bump method to loosen the harmonic balancer bolt, this will prevent the engine from starting.
Remove the back seat. This gives access to the fuel pump, which is inside the fuel tamk. The seat comes up without any tools, just get a good grip on each side and yank straight up. Once the seat is loose just maneuver it out of the way. A circular cover with a cable passing through it is the fuel pump access hatch. The idea here is that to relieve the pressure in the fuel injector lines, you open the hatch, disconnect the fuel pump connector, then run the engine until it dies. The problem here is that the hatch is glued in place. Could there be a better way? Like a fuse?
I pried open the hatch, carefully unmated the connector, and tried to start the engine. I would not even start. Apparently my vehicle had been sitting long enough for the pressure to leak out and all of this was unnecessary.
A friend said that when he worked on his vehicle, he skipped all of this and was just careful when he first disconnected lines with fuel pressure. So I remate the connector, and reseal the hatch. The tar or whatever it is is plenty sticky enough to just press it down again.
Tom's Camry pages / tom@mmto.org