How to Replace Knock Sensor 2006-11 Toyota RAV4

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the knock sensor in this 2010 Toyota RAV4. If you need this part or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal. We'll use a 10mm wrench. Loosen this nut up, and pull the connection off, and set this aside. You don't want this to arc out on the battery, so make sure it doesn't spring back.

And then disconnect the mass air flow sensor right here. Just push down the tab, release the connector. There's a wire retainer right here. Just get a trim tool, get underneath there. Pry it up, just like that. There's one over here as well. Take that wire, disconnect that wire. I'm just going to use a 10mm socket and a ratchet, and loosen up this clamp right here. Okay. Pull the snorkel back, just like that.

Just going to release these clips on the air box. Flip those off. Pull the air box out of the way, and pull the air filter out while I'm doing that. Just going to use a 10mm socket, extension, and electric ratchet to take these three bolts out of the air box. You don't necessarily need to take this air box out, but it's going to be better for the video, and also I might have a little more room.

I'm just going to use a pick, remove this wire retainer right here. Think I can just kind of spread this apart. Should be able to get it to unclip. There we go. Slide that wire out. Grab the box and slide it out.

I'm just going to remove this cover to get it out of the way. Just grab underneath and pull up. Just slide it out.

All right, now I'm going to take this bracket out. You can try to use a Phillips head screwdriver to loosen up that screw so that you can pull this valve off, but the screw's pretty tight on this one, so I'm just going to use a trim tool, and we're just going to pry the bracket out of here, just like that.

Now I can just take this hose out of the way. I'm just going to take hose clamp pliers, take this hose clamp off. Loosen it up, try to move this hose to separate it. It's not separating too well, so actually I'm going to separate it over here. Take this hose clamp off. Slide that down. Just grab the hose and twist. There we go.

All right, I want to loosen up this hose clamp right here. I'm going to use a cable-style hose clamp plier. Slide it over the hose clamp, and loosen that up. With that loosened up, try to grab the snorkel. Just rotate it and pull it off.

There's a vacuum line right here. This goes all the way over to the brake booster. So, slide that out of the bracket, and then there's a 10mm bolt right here. I'm just going to use a 10mm socket, extension, and ratchet. Take this bracket off. I'm just going to leave everything attached to the bracket and just move it out of the way, and just slide this to the side. There's some hoses attached on the side here. It's going to be kind of hard to see, but we want to take those hoses off. This one just has a little clamp that you can use just your fingers to move it. You can try twisting the hose.

Now we take this hose off right here. If you need to, you can take a right angle pick and just get in there and loosen up the hose. There's another clamp on this vacuum hose. You can either take it off right here or take it off down there. All right, just going to use my hose clamp pliers, squeeze the hose clamp, and just try to move it down the hose. Just twist the hose and wiggle it off, and there we go. Got it off.

These hose clamp pliers work pretty good. You just line it up with the clamp and squeeze it. That's how they work.

There's one of these hoses that is still attached to the intake that goes to the solenoid right here, the bottom hose, so we're just going to have to try to get that one off. You can either disconnect it on the intake or disconnect it on this side. It's just a vacuum hose. If it's pretty brutal, you could just cut it and just replace it. Just going to use the pick. There we go. A little bit of vacuum there. Slide that off.

Disconnect the connector right here. Just push down on the button and slide that off. There's the button. There's a fuel line right here. Just move that fuel line out of the way. You could take this bracket off if you needed to, but we'll just move it out of the way for now.

And then there's two coolant lines that go to the throttle body. Now, what you could do is just pop those lines off, but you're going to lose a lot of coolant, so I'm going to use these coolant hose pinchers. We actually sell these at 1AAuto.com. What I'm going to do is just put one around here, like this, and then just tighten down the wing nut. That's going to tighten off the coolant, prevent some of the coolant loss.

It's still a good idea to top off the coolant after you're done with the job, but this is going to prevent a lot of coolant from coming out. And you don't have to tighten these too tight. Just snug. All right, that should be good. I'm going to put one on the other one as well.

Just make sure there's no pressure in the coolant system. Just grab the radiator hose and give it a squeeze. Make sure it's not hot before you pop these off, because you don't want to get a face full of coolant.

We'll use the hose clamp pliers. You could probably use regular pliers to get these clamps off, too. Just hose clamp pliers work a little better. All right, just move those down like that. Same with this one. Then take a pick, right angle pick, and just try to pop these lines off. Get in there. You're going to lose a little bit of coolant. You could put a bucket underneath the car to catch any of the coolant. Slide that off, just like that. Not too much coolant. And then same with the other one.

Now I'm going to take these four bolts out. I'm just going to use a 10mm socket and extension and a ratchet. Take these out. With all those bolts out, just grab the throttle body, slide it out. Just be careful with it. Don't drop it.

There is a connector right here. This goes to a tuning valve. Sometimes they call it a runner valve. It's basically a solenoid that moves some doors inside the intake. So, you want to disconnect that connector right there.

All right, so this hose right here that goes to this solenoid valve, just slide this off. Now, you can disconnect it right here if you want, just like that, or you could disconnect it down there. It might be a little bit harder to get to, so just disconnect it like that.

Now, there's some brackets that hold these wires onto the intake right here and right here. I'm just going to take the bolts out and we'll disconnect those brackets. Just use a 10mm socket, extension, and a ratchet, and same with this one, and slide those wires out of the way. At least this wire. This other wire, we still have some attachments to disconnect.

So, there's a retainer right there. I'm just going to use some needle nose pliers, try to squeeze the tabs on the retainer. Get that wire out. Actually I think it goes this way. Slide that wire out.

Then there's a connector right here. You can slide the connector off the retainer or squeeze the retainer. Slide that out. And we can see more right here and right on the back side. This one's going to be hard to see. I can't even see it. I'm just going to have to go from underneath. Try to squeeze the retainer.

There is a bracket right here. I'll actually take that bracket off. Just use a 10mm socket. All right. Take that bolt out, and then that bracket comes out. You could have just tried to pop that off if you wanted to or take the bracket off. And then there's one more right here. Just use my pliers underneath. Slide that up, and just slide this wiring harness out of the way.

From underneath the vehicle, I'm going to use a 12mm socket, a long extension, and a ratchet. There's a bolt right here. I have to get that out. It might be a little tricky to get in there. I'll just try to loosen that up. Once it breaks free it'll be easier to just do it by hand. There we go. Slide that bolt out.

Over on the passenger side, there is a wiring harness connector right here. You want to try to take that off as well. Just use some needle nose on the back side. Try to squeeze the retainer. Try to get that out. There you go. Just pop that off. Oh, I guess it squeezes this way, not the other way. Slide that out of the way.

Now I need to get access to some of the bolts on the back side. You can't really see them. You could use a mirror to find out where they are. There's one right here at the front of the intake. I'm going to use a 12mm socket and an extension. Try to get on that. You just got to do it by feel, pretty much. All right. Turn that bolt, take that off. Once you get it loose, probably take the extension and the socket and just do it by hand. Slide the bolt out. There's one, and we'll do the same with the other ones.

Should be a bolt pretty much in between all the intake runners. All right, and then on the back side there's one more of those bolts, so there's a total of five of those bolts. If you get those all out, then the intake is loose. Let's slide the intake off.

This hose right here to this solenoid is still connected to the intake, so we'll pop that off. You could mark this just to say which hose goes where. You'd just use a marker, just a felt tip pen. Just make a mark on that and then you just make a mark on the solenoid so you know those line up. Then you could disconnect that, just like that.

So this intake, you can't get it past the fuel rail, so what we're actually going to do is pull the fuel rail off at this time. Disconnect that. Now, you could have pulled the fuel rail off before, but we're just going to do it now. Then I'll take a 12mm socket, an extension and a ratchet, and there's a bolt right here. Get this bolt out. Again, it's kind of hard to see. You just got to do it by feel. Once you loosen it up, then you can take it out. And there's another bolt over here, more on the driver side. Take that bolt out. Take that bolt out. Just grab the fuel line and slide it up and out of the way.

At this point, if you were trying to remove the intake to pull it out, this cowl is actually in the way. Now, the reason why we did the video like this is because we had other things we were going to remove, and you don't need to remove the cowl to get to those other things. So, at this point I'm going to remove the cowl.

Just take a pick or a small screwdriver. Get under here to get the covers for the wiper arms. Take those off. Then you can access the nuts, and we're going to use a 15mm socket and a ratchet, loosen these nuts up. Same with this one. Take that nut off, then take this one off. Then you can grab the wiper arm and just wiggle it a little bit. Should be able to get it to slide off here. And same with the other one. Take that off.

Then on both sides we're just going to take this rubber piece off right here. You can either pull it off completely or just separate it from up top or even down below. Do the same on the passenger side.

All right. From underneath here, just take a straight blade screwdriver or a trim tool and there's some clips. Go in, just hold this down, pop those clips up. Once those are all popped up like that ... Oops, this piece fell out. That's okay. Then we're just going to slide this towards the front of the vehicle a little bit. There is some clips on the back here that slide into the windshield. Just lay that aside.

Now, this piece is going to come out. Just take a straight blade screwdriver, just pop these clips to the side. Same with this one and this one, and this comes right out.

Now we're just going to remove these two wiper transmission bolts. I'm going to use a 10mm socket, extension, and a ratchet. Remove that one, and remove this one. Take that out. Grab the wiper transmission, and we're going to slide it towards the passenger side, and then slide it out. We can just flip it over here. If you want to you can disconnect the connector, but you don't have to. It can be out of the way, just make sure it doesn't arc on the battery.

Then you can take a straight blade screwdriver or a trim tool, take this wiring harness retainer out there. And then we have 14 bolts we need to remove. There's some right there, three right there, four, five, and then the same on the other side. So, we're going to take those out with a 10mm socket, extension, and a ratchet. 14 total. With those all disconnected, I'm going to take it out and can slide this little plate out right there. Just get it out of the way.

Now, I want to remove this hose, at least get it out of the way, so take the 10mm socket and ratchet, remove these nuts, and right there. Be very careful not to drop any of these into the intake. Just take this, slide the hose, and we'll just slide this out of the way. Now we can grab the intake and very carefully slide it up. You have a lot more room this way. Comes right out.

On the back side of the engine, right here, you can disconnect the knock sensor. Push down on the button, if you can grab it. Right there. Disconnect that connector, and I'm going to take a 12mm socket and ratchet, and keep in mind the orientation of the sensor because you're going to want to install the new sensor the same position the old sensor is. You could mark it if you can see it, but it's kind of hard to see. And take out the old sensor.

Here's the old part. Here's the new knock sensor from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, the shape is the same, has the same connector, has the same mounting positions. Get yours at 1AAuto.com, and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

Take the knock sensor. Now, you want to be careful with this. You do not want to drop it. Take it and slide in position where the old one was. You can put the bolt through it, and just gently get that started. It's very hard to see. You might want to use a mirror so that you can see what you're doing. All right.

Now we're going to take a 12mm socket and a torque wrench. We're going to torque this to 15 foot-pounds, and make sure it is level. You don't want that sensor to go too far out of being level. It's going to change some readings and stuff, so make sure it's level. And it's crucial that you torque it, because then it won't work right if it's not torqued properly. Take the connector, line it up, plug it in. Make sure it's locked down, and it's good.

The old gasket actually fell off the intake, so we'll take that out. Throw that away. And then I'm going to take a rag and just get some solvent or some brake parts cleaner on, and we're going to clean all the surface of where the intake goes. Clean it real good. Try not to get anything into the intake ports.

I'm just going to take a rag and some cleaner, some brake parts cleaner or some kind of solvent and try to clean these intakes out a little bit. Just get any of the oil mostly out of these grooves in here so that the new gasket can get in there and not fall out. So, just do that. Spend a little time cleaning that.

Now I'm going to take the gasket. Now you can line it up. Find these little tabs right here, and find where they go on the intake itself. There's a notch there and a notch there, so we'll line those up. It'll only go on one way, and you really want these to stick in there good. Just like that.

Before we put the intake on, just get anything out of your way. You can try to get this bracket out of the way. There's these little spacers that go under the fuel injector rail, so I am going to take those off temporarily. Just put these aside just so they don't fall into any of the intake ports. And this is personal preference, I like to take a blow gun just to make sure nothing fell in the intake ports. That way if there was a bolt or something that fell in there, you might hear it rattling around. Because otherwise that will not be good.

Now I'll just grab the intake. Make sure your gasket's in there good, and just slide it down into position. All right, get that lined up. There is some pins, so slide those guide pins in and take your bolt and just take a 12mm socket and extension. I'm just going to get the two top ones started. Then at least it holds the intake a little bit better. There we go. Now I don't actually physically have to old the intake. Now I can get the other bolts in.

Now, with the vehicle raised up, I can put this last bolt in. There's a total of six of these intake bolts. I know I might have said there's only five taking this out, but this one is included. This went right here. So, get that one started. Once you get that one started, then we have to drop the vehicle down, torque the other intake bolts from up top, and then raise it back up and then torque this last one.

Now I'm going to take a 12mm socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque this to 15 foot-pounds, and there is a specific order. We need to start in the middle, the lower middle bolt right there. That's number one. Number two is to the left of that and upper, so closer to the driver side, upper. 15 foot-pounds. Number three is the opposite of that on the passenger side. Number four is right here, this lower one on the passenger side. Number five is the opposite of that on the driver side.

Tighten that down, and then after that, if you want to raise the vehicle and get number six, or if you can grab it from over here, and I can't. I'm going to raise the vehicle. It's not the easiest to get a torque wrench in here, but torque this last bolt, number six. There we go. And then if you want to you can go back around and just double-check all the torques, make sure they're all torqued down properly.

This O2 sensor bracket, I'm just going to reinstall that in position on the intake where that connector went, right there. Get that started. Then I'm just going to grab this hose. I'm going to reinstall this in the back here. Just line that up there. Just like that. Take the nuts, get those turning, right there and right there. And then take a 10mm socket and a ratchet and we'll tighten these up. All right, tighten that up, and tighten this one up. That's good.

Now we're going to install this hose. I'm just going to use some hose clamp pliers. We can move this hose clamp back down to that position, right there. I get it lined up. This one goes on the lower part, and you can try to squeeze it on and just slide it on, but sometimes you need a little help from the hose clamp pliers. Slide that on, and then that's good, right there.

Then there's this other hose that's a little bit easier to install, right here. This has this clamp, you can just use your fingers to move that clamp. Slide this over here, and that's good.

And then this sensor right here. I marked these hoses for the solenoid, so this one's going to go right here, and then the other one is going to go on the other side, just like this. So, it's a good idea to mark those. And then we can slide that hose right there in that bracket.

Now, before we install the injector rail, we're going to put these little spacers back in position. There's two of them. Let those sit right there and right there. All right, I'm just going to take these injectors, wipe them off.

Now, it is recommended that you replace the seals whenever you take these injectors out. We don't have new seals for this, so we're going to reuse the old ones. It's not the best idea because you could end up with a check engine light afterwards. So, strongly recommend replacing the seals.

Then just slide the injector rail back in position. Now, you want to check the holes for the injectors as well. You might want to clean those out or blow them out with a blow gun. Just line these up. Those are all lined up. That's good. Take these two bolts. Get them started, right there and right there. Don't drop them. Now I'll take a 12mm socket and a torque wrench. We're going to torque these bolts to 15 foot-pounds. All right, those are tight.

Now we're going to connect the fuel injectors. Connect the connectors. Just line up the connector and lock it in place. It was four of them. There we go. Now we can take all these wiring harnesses, get these back in position where they go.

There's this wire retainer down here, we can push that back where that goes on the intake. And this wire's going to go right here, and there's this bracket that goes on the back over here. Connect this connector.

This connector can actually go back in this retainer right here. We didn't have to take that off because we took the whole bracket off, but that's going to line up right there. So, we're going to put a bolt there. There's going to be a bolt that goes onto this bracket over here, and then those brackets over there. Take the bolt that goes down here, install that on this bracket. All right, and then you can put the other bolts in, in the brackets, and snug them all down. All right, snug those up. Just use a 10mm socket and a ratchet.

This bracket right here, we need to install that, so install that bolt, and then you can use a ratchet wrench or just a 10mm socket and ratchet. Snug that up.

All right, I'm just going to put a rag over the throttle body. You could have did this earlier. It's just a good idea to prevent things from falling into the throttle body or into the intake.

Now, I'm going to reinstall this piece right here, this cowl cover piece. Now, based on the rest of the video, what you could do is hold off until the end to do this piece, and I would recommend when you're doing this job, take this piece off first. We took it off about half way through just for the sake of other videos that we're making. So, line that up, and then we'll put the bolts in. I'll take these bolts, put these all in. There's 14 of these bolts in all, so put those all back in and then we'll just tighten them down. And I'll just use a 10mm socket, extension, and a ratchet. Tighten these up.

Now reinstall the wiper motor and transmission. Just line that up. This can slide in the back, in that bracket right there. Put the bolts back in. We'll tighten these up with a 10mm socket and a ratchet. Then take this wire and resecure that right there. Take this panel, slide this in position, and lock it in place.

All right. Take the cowl cover, just slide that in position. The piece at the top goes under the windshield, and it slides over. And then line up underneath, close to these push pins. Line those up, lock them down. Just like that. Take some push pins. If they're broken, replace them with new ones. Do the same for the other side. Take these little rubber side grommets and slide these in position, right there, and then same with the other side.

All right. Take the wiper arm and wiper, get that relined up. Take the nut, install the nut, and you can take a 14mm socket, extension, and a ratchet and we'll tighten this down. Have to make sure it's lined up where it was when it came off. Snug that up, then I'll do with the other one. And then snug that up. That's good, and put the covers on over the nuts.

At this point, you want to reconnect the tuning valve. Connect this connector right here, lock it in place. Now I can take this rag off. I did put a rag down over this throttle body opening in the intake so that I didn't drop anything in there. Take that away.

And it'd be a good idea to replace this seal right here. We're not going to because I don't have another seal, but you can just pull up on that little tab right there, get a new throttle body seal, so that looks good. Slide the throttle body into position. Now, if it's easier, before I put the bolts in, you can hook these hoses up. Line that one up on the bottom, then this one goes on top. A little bit easier to do that before you put the bolts in.

You can take these little clamps off. That's just for coolant to go through the throttle body, keep it cool. Slide those off, and you can use pliers if you don't have hose clamp pliers. Sometimes it's easier. Whoops. Just move those hose clamps down in position, same with this one. Make sure that bottom hose is all the way on. There you go. That's good.

Now I'll take these four bolts, get these bolts started. Take a 10mm socket and a ratchet and we'll tighten these bolts down. Then I'm going to take the same 10mm socket and a torque wrench and torque these to seven foot-pounds.

Take the connector, line the connector up, lock it in place. Take this fuel hose, line that up in that bracket right there. Now take this hose in the back and then connect this hose to this hose. And then take the clamp and line the clamp up. You can do it with your fingers. You shouldn't need pliers, but if you do, use pliers, and then that's going to go right there, just like that. Now, you may not have taken that off for replacing the throttle body, but if you did, put that back on.

Take the lower portion of the air box and line this back up. Then there's three bolts. Take the three bolts. One goes right there and the other two down here, and just snug those up. Use a 10mm socket and a ratchet. Tighten these down. Install the air filter.

Now we're going to take the snorkel, and I have my hose clamp tool started on the hose clamp, and then slide it over the throttle body. Whoop, it popped off. Going need to reset that. All right, I got it close with the other hose clamp tool, now I'm just going to position it a little bit better. That looks pretty good right there.

This hose is going to go right here, and this valve is going to go right here. Slide that back in position, just like that. And we'll take this hose, slide that right onto the valve cover, just like that, and you should be able to pinch this with your fingers. Move this hose clamp on. Might be a little easier to slide it down before you slide it over the valve cover, right there.

We want to take these two ears in the box, and those are going to go in the back, right there, where the slot is. Just move the snorkel out of your way. Slide that in position. Make sure this cable's out of your way, and lock this in place. That's good.

Slide the snorkel back on, just like that. I'll just plug this in, plug this into the mass air flow sensor, and then the retainers right there and right there. Now let's tighten up that worm clamp. You can either take a Phillips head screwdriver or a 10mm socket and ratchet and tighten this down.

Take the engine cover, line this back up, and push it back down. Take the battery cable, reinstall that. Use a 10mm socket or a 10mm wrench and a ratchet, and snug that up. Just make sure it's snug, which is good.

After this job, you're going to want to make sure you take the coolant cap off and top off the coolant. If a lot of coolant came out, then you're going to have to bleed the system. Use the appropriate coolant. Check your owner's manual. You can use a funnel to do this if you wanted to, or just be careful.

You're going to fill it up, and you want to let it run, monitoring the coolant system, for about 10 minutes. If you put the heat on low, and then watch the temp gauge, shut it off in 10 minutes and recheck the level. Put the cap back on.

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