CyMoN

I will take your truck how close are you to norfolk

check your power steering pump I had misfiring and it was a vac line to the power steering the throttle up valve was plastic and it was broke off at the pump and caused a good vac leak.

LotOMiles

Chances are, the engine is not shot, just needs a little TLC. You need 4 basic things to fix just about anything on a 3.0. A volt meter, compression tester, good tool kit, and the factory service manual.

If you think you have a shot engine, do a compression check. The 3L should have 160-180 on each cylinder, tested when cold. The cylinder will still fire with compression as low as 90 psi. It will just idel rough.

When you pull the plugs, keep track of what plug goes to what cylinder. Take a photo and post it here.

I suggest you start here and report back what you found.

Windsor

I wouldn't write off the entire engine as being toast. Like others have said, it sounds like you're not getting combustion in one or two cylinders for some reason.

LotOMiles

Your comment about overfilling the tank rings a bell. It's all theory, but gas could get sucked into the evap system and fill up the charcoal can. Then when the engine tries to suck this into the intake, it sucks in fuel.

On the charcoal can, the small hose on the top is the feed into the throttle body. Pull off the hose and put a plug into the hose. Then see if it runs.
It may not run clean right away as it might have a pool of fuel sitting in the intake.

SolidDigital

I've tried everything suggested here that doesn't involve a part replacement so far except for pull the plugs since I still have to find an extension.

Here's something weird.. in my haynes manual the diagram pic my coil looks like is the 93+ year... maybe the diagram for the older years just showed the 4 cyl one though.

One of the bolts for the bracket holding the coil and ignitor also managed to break off, so now it'll only be bolted down on one side.

I get .8 ohms for primary resistance, manual says it should be .5 to .7.
However when I measure from either of those two and where the wire from the distributor plugs in, I get 12.5k ohms for secondary resistance, which is right in the middle of where it says it should be.

So since primary is .1 over what it says it should be, I'm thinking that's really not enough off to worry about... could even be the meter is off a little.

I'm not sure about the ignitor though, doesn't really say anything in the manual except to do a visual inspection of it and trying a new one if the problems persist haha..


I was just thinking about another thing too... say you're driving down the road in 5th gear at 45 and press the throttle half way in real fast and let it out real fast about 30 to 50 times, if that were to damage anything what would that most likely be?

vital22re

iTrader: (2)

There's this weird intermittent popping sound... I pulled the tube from the coolant overflow tank because it sounded like water bubbling in there, but it did it with that out. Then I was thinking maybe the AFM is flapping shut hard when the idle goes to almost nothing..

The coolant overflow tank does seem higher though and when I had the tube pulled out of it and the idle was doing it's low almost stalling thing, there was a constant stream of coolant and who knows what else pouring out of it, any less and it'd be dripping in there. The headgasket was done by the previous owner around 35-40k miles ago, but I'm guessing with the overflow tank being a weird level it could easily be that again too.
It still looks like coolant though and the oil dipstick still looks just like oil, not mixed from what I can tell so far.

Plus there's the smell of unburnt fuel, I had to sniff the overflow tank a few times to make sure it wasn't coming straight from that.[/QUOTE]

headgaskets can leak 2 ways, into the oil or into the exhaust. Yours like mine could be blowing exhuast into the cooling system. That would explain the bubling poping from the coolant you stated. check the coolant level in the radiator and then leave the cap off of it. check the plugs and while you have them out crank it over to clear cylinders. see if you get any spray coming out of the cylinders. while youre at it check the compression. if the compression is good and EVEN across all cylinders. then you can breath a little better. That right there will get you a good foot in the door in the diagnosis. Good luck!

SolidDigital

Just an update for anyone who may have been interested.. The engnbldr timing belt kit that I ordered and had installed by a questionable mechanic (questionable because of this hah) only a few thousand miles before this issue was the problem. Turns out the timing belt broke and that's why it wasn't running.

Now I am curious if bump starting could cause enough of a strain on the timing belt to cause it to break? I did this maybe 5 times around 15-20mph in 2nd gear just for the heck of it almost right before this happened also.

Western Canuk

If the timing belt was broken it wouldn't run. Possibly slipped a belt but really bump starting shouldn't do any harm.V6 are belts?

I had a Honda that blew a head gasket only on the coolant side and it would run fine until you shut it off. The pressure would purge through the coolant overflow and it would puke out the top briefly.

My 22RE runs like it's almost dead when I haven't changed the plugs frequently enough.

I checked my coil a couple months ago and it was .2 over on the primary. I don't have any issues because of that though.

Dewbro91

I would definately do a compression check. My 3.0 had the same kind of problem and it turned out I had burned valves in #3 and 5. That would also explain the raw fuel smell because it isn't burning and getting kicked out the tailpipe. Hope this helps

SolidDigital

Well.. my friend that I gave it to, because I was sick of all the problems and didn't want to pay a mechanic to mess with it, said he just replaced the timing belt, put new cams in and fixed the screwed up brakes with a new master cylinder.

After test driving a lot of different vehicles I ended up with an 09 frontier. Liked the seating position a lot better than the tacoma and I couldn't even ride with the window down in the tacoma without it just about blowing my hat off haha.
I'm getting better gas mileage than my old truck and have 111 more hp and 101 more ft pounds of torque =D

I do miss shifting though as this truck is an automatic. I also miss being able to go offroad without worrying about a few scratches.. There are places I just won't go now due to the fact that limbs would be scraping against the truck.