Fractilo

So I have a 1990 sr5 manual 4runner with 219k that I bought from a guy a couple months ago for a whopping 700 dollars.
truck ran and drove great with no issues when i bought it and still ran very good until a few days ago. Apperently these 3vze engines can have a widespread amount of issues when you think it may be just one thing. SO!
as I said, drove and ran great, haven't done a whole lot other than replacing the cv shafts and replacing the fluids in the diffs, transmission, transfer case, motor and so forth. Now it will start right up if it has been sitting for awhile and idle properly the way it should, but if you press the accelerator softly or straight up flooring it, the thing will bog out and hesitate so badly it almost falls on it's face and stalls out. Sometimes after it dies it will struggle to fire when cranking the motor over then finally start up roughly just to fall on it's face again. what is strange and irritates the hell out of me is that most of the time when the truck has been sitting overnight i can start it up. then drive it all day, up to 80 plus miles with NO issues. then coming to a stop and idling for a minute or two it will bog out when trying to put any load on it and stall out, crank several times and it is back to blowing out some black fuel smoke, a little fuel out of the tailpipe, and not wanting to go at all. and if it does, its only five or ten feet before stalling out again! the TPS is clean , new and working. I have already replaced the FPR or fuel pressure regulator with a new one thinking that was the cause. drove it after i changed that and it seemed fine for 20 miles and now its not even wanting to run at all. The CEL does flicker on and off and has since i bought the truck, and I have put more than 700 miles on it... Could this be my fuel pump going bad ? fuel filter ? spark plugs ? Does anybody have the same or has had this issue and knows what it may most likely be ? Haven't ran a test light on my plug wires yet, or checked to see if all injectors are working properly. I will run a code reader on it when I can but I cannot even get the thing to drive up my street now with out it doing this crap! please feel free to share ANY info relating this issue, I am desperate to get this thing going for a trip i have in a couple days. sick of spending money on new parts that do not fix the problem as well.


AS OF RIGHT NOW.. Truck is parked in the drive way and will run idling how it should for as long as you want the damned thing too. But the same problem occurs under any load.. Sensor maybe? no cat converter on this runner either,

mholme

You can blink out the codes on the engine light by jumping terminals in the diagnostic port, TE1 and E1.

scope103

Have you checked the ignition timing?

Fractilo

No i have not. But wouldn't it always run like a pile of crap if it was way off? As i said it will run and drive flawlessly at times under little or heavy loads. Im going to go run a diagnostic on it in about a half hour. I will update then.

​​​​​​i also sprayed the vacuum lines with quick start to check for leaks, all good. I jumped the fp and b+ ports to check the fuel pump and it seems good. Where would i start with checking my ignition ? Truck will start and rev up fine as of right now. I feel cursed!

Fractilo

I jumped the ports te1 and e1 and watched a video on how to read the codes from the flashing light. i only got back code 22 which is the coolant temp sensor. Can that cause me to run so rough and sluggish at random times? I do not know much about this strange engine only dealing with it for a couple of months now.

Fractilo

It smells a bit of fuel in the engine bay as well.

toiyodah4WD

That code is telling you something. But check air filter (dirty?) and an easy to get to spark plug, chances are they are bad. Take note of coloring etc and reference online what that means.

Fractilo

Ended up having a dead sparkplug in cylinder 5, changed them all out with new denso plugs and got some new plug wires. runs like new again!

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Glad to hear you got it fixed and what the problem was. We dont always hear what fixed the problem.

gyates93

I had this same issue with code 22 as well, replacing the coolant temp sensor and changing fuel filter fixed the problem for me. If the issue rears its head again (it was very intermittent for me) don't overlook the temp sensor!

DallasTX

Glad you got your fixed. I just replaced the head gasket, now have code 22 and same symptoms. Idles fine, timing show spot on, but hesitates on acceleration. 1992 FSM says code 22 is a "open or short in the water temp sensor circuit for .5 seconds or more. Trouble area Open or short in water temp sensor circuit; water temp sensor or ECU."

I am still troubleshooting mine, but for others that might have this issue, I have attached a picture of the procedure.