Aaron Borhegyi

Long story short, my 4 runner had a misfire and blinking engine light that I noticed around New years. Unfortunately I didn't get around to attempting to fix it till now because of life as you know it.. I'm not a mechanic, but I am mechanically inclined so I had a go at it this entire month of august. Delays due to employment and having to wait for parts and more parts to be delivered and a lot of research. Before I had at it, I ran my obd1 codes, 42 my spedo/odo (stopped working) and 12 for my distributor. I decided to do a overhaul of the entire intake and fuel injection system. An injector was leaking fuel and the o-rings were no longer rubber.
Parts replaced as followed: Distributor cap/rotor, spark plugs/wires, EGR gasket, air intake manifold gasket, throttle body gasket, fuel injector kit (o-rings etc), fuel injector pigtails/harness, all new vacuum hoses, cold start injector pigtail/harness, oil/filter, air filter, pcv valve/grommet, various coolant hoses/coolant.
After doing all this and putting it back together, the engine light is no longer blinking but is now solid, I haven't ran the codes yet & I will get back to you on that today.
When I first started it up, overwhelmed with stoke that it started after doing all that work for I have never worked on an engine before, but the misfire was still there if not worse, I drove it around the block after operating temp and I got a sputter here n there, then all of a sudden the sputter got so bad it felt as if it was running on one cylinder, it couldn't drive faster than 5mph just dragging along trying to get it parked by my house again. It shuts off multiple times in my attempt to drive it only a couple hundred yards. It didn't do any of this before my service and now I think I have a blown head gasket, but not for certain because there isn't any leeks, steam, or white smoke. I decided to do a sea foam green cleanse, maybe bad timing on that, didn't make anything better... I'm going to run my codes today and clean my new spark plugs since the sea foam green.
Any tips and thoughts are much appreciated!
Aaron

scope103

Welcome to YotaTech.
Ah, gee, Aaron. Your poor truck is trying (desperately) to ask for help. And you just drive it around? Get the codes. Then we'll talk.

Why?

While you're at it, did you check the ignition timing? The $30 for the timing light (which you need no matter what) is probably just a fraction of what you spent on all those parts.

blackmacs490

You'll need to be sure the vacuum hoses are connected correctly. Don't ask how I know.

Aaron Borhegyi

I ran my codes today, speed sesnor, distributor, and TPS. Turned out my TPS was unplugged, also double checked all my vacuum lines after searching threads on vacuum line layouts of 3vze and found 6 hoses incorrectly routed! My bad ... That completely fixed the sputter problem. Back to square one, Distributor.. I replaced the rotor and cap. Still ran the distributor code, the wiring harness looks old but i cant find a replacement one, going to check out the dealership this weekend for that before i replace the distributor, i will at the same time get a timing light. Thank you all for the help

mholme

Kolton5543

Rather than making assumptions you should start testing components. It doesn't sound like a head gasket and there doesn't look to be any evidence pointing that way. Being that you are setting code 12 you should probably look into that. 12 is a circuit code for the distributor. You're not gunna be happy about that dizzy price tag so before you just spend all your money on a new one you should test it. Google how to test it and you'll find many threads. You'll only need a multi meter. If you don't know how to use one, google it. If you don't have one, buy one. Decent ones can be bought cheap. Don't go too cheap though. Those ones you get free with harbor freight coupons aren't worth a damn. Don't bother with borrowing one either. They are cheap enough and an invaluable tool. If the dizzy test good, test it again this time from the pcm connector. This will rule out wiring. Don't go shoving your meter leads into the connector though as you will quickly ruin it.

Aaron Borhegyi

Thank you all for the guidance! The codes I ran using a paper clip! being 12, 41, 42. 12 being I think my distributor, will be getting a timing light this afternoon, and I have a multi meter but don't know how to use it! So I will look that up lol... Code 41 was my TPS, which I found was unplugged, plugged it back in, it drove with out a sputter and It gained It's power back, no more code 41. I also re-routed 6 vac hoses correctly, thank you @blackmacs490.
42 being my speed sensor, my speed/odo has not been working for a few months now, I think I want to fix this distributor code first as far as money goes...