Foreign Service

Time, the elements and little critters can adversely affect Toyota
evaporative emissions systems. These canister air valve service
tips will help you identify which one(s) youre dealing with.

Dan
Marinucci
dmarinucci@motor.com

ets start the new year with a riddle. Determine what these things
have in common: An unfillable
fuel tank, mud nests, cobwebs,
vacuum plugs, pinch-off pliers
and false evap leaks.
If you answered Toyota canister air valve,
then you win the Starbucks gift card. But dont
feel bad if you didnt win. Many technicians dont
understand this valve, which has fooled some
techs into misdiagnosing a Toyota evap system.
Lets review how it works and why it affects evap
diagnosis on millions of Toyota vehicles.
Toyota used this air valve on a wide variety of
its popular vehicles from 1996 to 2005. The valve,
which is mounted on the charcoal canister, appears on two similar families of Toyota evap systemsnonintrusive and intrusive. During the late
1990s, the canister was in the engine compartment of such vehicles as the Avalon, Camry, TacoVapor Pressure
Sensor Drain
Hose

Drain Hose
Fitting

Photo: Dan Marinucci

Vapor Pressure
Sensor Port
Cap

I had to do two chores to this Toyotaclean out the air drain hose
and leak-check the evap system. Before leak-checking the system, I
removed the air drain hose and stuffed an inverted rubber cap into
the drain hose fitting. I also disconnected the vapor pressure sensor vent hose and capped its port in the side of the air drain fitting.

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January 2013

ma, etc. But eventually, the canister ended up under the rear of a typical Toyota vehicle. So you
have to raise the vehicle on a lift and then squeeze
a hand into some tight spots to reach that canister
and the parts bolted to it.
Examining a charcoal canister on a 1996-2005
Toyota equipped with a nonintrusive or intrusive
evap system, if the canister is located under the
hood, the air valve is molded into the top of the
canister toward the front of the vehicle. A hose
about the diameter of a common PCV hose vents
it to the atmosphere.
When the canister is under the rear of the vehicle, youll find two round valve assemblies bolted
onto the end of the canister. The canister air valve
were discussing is the one on the right. A very
large, distinctive hose vents this air valve to the atmosphere.
If you want to locate the canister air valve hose
quickly, connect an OEM-style smoke machine to
the evap service port. When you push smoke into
the system, it will flow out of the air valve drain
hose. That hose leads you to the correct valve on
the canister.
This canister air valve is really two valves in
one. One part is an air inlet valve; it allows fresh
air to flow into the canister while the engine is
purging the evap system. But our focus this
month is the lower part of the assembly, known
as the air drain valve. It takes about .30 psi of
pressure to open it. Normally, this occurs only
during refuelingthe drain valve opens and
vents the fuel tank. If the air drain valve cannot
vent the fuel tank for some reason, the driver reports that he cant fill the tank completely.
A moment ago I described a large hose connected to the air valve assembly on an undercar
charcoal canister. This hose does more than just
vent the air drain valve (and the fuel tank) to the
atmosphere. It also vents one side of the vapor
pressure sensor to the atmosphere. Follow the air
drain hose toward the canister assembly and youll
see a much smaller hose branched into it. This
smaller hose leads to the vapor pressure sensor.
(Toyotas vapor pressure sensor is equivalent to a

fuel tank pressure sensor on a common

Ford or GM vehicle.)
You may encounter two different
kinds of problems with the air drain
hose. The first is a hose blocked by debris; the other is an air drain valve
opened by a smoke machine. A
blocked air drain hose prevents the air
valve from venting the gas tank during
refueling; the customer says he cant
fill the tank for some reason. In that
case, always inspect the end of the air
drain hose for cobwebs, mud, leaves,
paper scraps, etc. It seems that once a
spider builds a thick mesh of cobwebs
in the end of the hose, other debris
sticks to it. Whats more, insects that
create mudlike nests may clog the
hose.
You might be tempted to blow compressed air into a restricted air drain
hose. I dont recommend doing that because it could push debris into the air
valve assembly. I prefer to patiently remove the air drain hose from the vehicle
and then back-flush it. On occasions, the
cobwebs were so thick that Ive had to
scrape out the end of the air drain hose
with a pocket knife. Other times, Ive
had to carve out mud and debris with a
drill bit and finger power.
The smoke machine is an extremely
valuable tool, but you have to remember
one detail about using it on a Toyota
equipped with an air drain valve. Ive explained in previous columns that a typical, OEM-approved smoke machine
produces a test pressure of approximately .50 psi. This is enough pressure to
open the air drain valve and create a
false evap leak. I know of situations
where uninformed techs saw smoke
streaming out of the air drain hose and
concluded that the vehicle had a leaking
canister assembly. Brother, thats an expensive mistake!
Proper procedure here is to connect
an OEM-style smoke machine to the
evap service port and turn it on. Watch
for a robust flow of smoke from the air
drain hose. A hearty discharge of smoke
suggests that the canister side of the sys-

tem isnt restricted. Plus, this small step

helps the smoke machine fill the system
quicker. Once you see a steady flow of
smoke from the air drain hose, securely
clamp off the hose before you continue
leak-checking that evap system.
Typically, a Toyota equipped with an
air drain valve has a lime-green warning
tag on the evap system service port that
warns you to clamp off the air drain hose
before pressure-testing the evap system.
If this warning tag is still in place, some
techs read it and heed it but others
dont.
Watch two details about the warnings
on the green tag. First, the tag tells you
to clamp off the air drain hose at a yellow line. By the time this vehicle reaches
your bay, this yellow line on the air drain
hose probably has faded away completely. Dont sweat it; just be sure to clamp
the air hose completely shut.
Second, the green tag instructs you to
limit test pressure to 1.00 psi. However,
the output pressure of the OEM-approved smoke machinelike other
OEM-approved modelsis only .50 psi.
So, use a modern, OEM-style smoke
machine to diagnose Toyotas nonintrusive and intrusive evap systems. Furthermore, securely pinch off the air
drain hose. Some techs use an appropriate clamp-off or pinch-off tool; others
simply stuff a large rubber plug into the
air drain hose during the leak test. By all
means, remember to remove the plug or
pinch-off tool before returning the car to
the customer. Otherwise, the driver
wont be able to fill the fuel tank and
youll get the blame. (I just made that
mistake recently; thankfully, the car
owners thought it was funny.)
Last but not least, watch for the little
vent hose coming from the vapor pressure sensor. For a thorough leak test,
carefully remove this sensor vent hose
from the large air drain hose. Then cover the little port in the side of the air
drain hose with a rubber cap. If smoke
comes out of the small hose during your
leak test, you know that the vapor pressure sensor is leaking.

Circle #9

January 2013

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