westjohns yota

hey guys, many of you know me on here, ive had many different Toyotas and im pretty good around them, today driving down the road I saw a first gen 4runner sitting in someones yard with the hood up, being me, myself and I, I pulled in and started asking questions, come to find out this guy had a beautiful 86, extremely clean , had 186k miles and he bought it brand new, the tops never been off of it, he has complained about a loss of power, he even let me drive it around the block, and let me say, it def has a loss. started checking stuff, pulled the tools in my truck out, he had a tune up done last year, everything looked new, had good compression across the board, perfect green coolant, fresh oil, didn't miss or stumple, just seemed sluggish, he said it hasn't gotten worse, was going to work one day and pulled out on the main road and just didn't have the normal power, hes taken it too several mechanics, one even being the dealer and they all cant seem to find anything wrong, any ideas? I was all over it, didn't see anything out of the normal, only thing I didn't do was fuel psi check, ideas anybody? next things the cat, but he said the previous shop checked it and said it was good.......offered to buy it but he said hed have to talk to his wife.... pics next weekend, he wants me to do another tune up

rworegon

What engine?

westjohns yota

22re, fuel injected, he wants to change the fuel filter, plugs, plugs wires, cap, rotor and do a seafoam treatment next weekend, he said he isn't very mechanical, all he does is his own oil changes

SoCal4Running

Plugged Cat will absolutly cause this, they usually blow out though and start a fire on the side of the road and your power comes back. Just cause a shop said they checked it... We all know what that means. Lol


Fuel filter might do it also and with 180K plus its time to do it reguardless.

westjohns yota

well im going to do the tune up he wants next weekend an maybe try and sell him a valve cover gasket and valve adjustment as it needs it, guess it shows how much I love these things, I want to help everyone fix theirs!

old fart

I just went through a symptom of this..twice. 1st was a 91 Toyota truck, 22re, 5spd. (Everything checked out, on both truck as for compression coolant, temp sensor, maf, etc) So on the 91 truck, a plug wire had somehow broken 6-8" from where the boot went over the plug. Ironically on the truck we didn't check every single plug for spark, yes my partner lied and I didn't double check him like we're s'posed to, anyways, 6-8" from the boot/plug connection it was broke where we assumed some moron just kept yanking the actual wire and not pulling it from the boot itself. So that one wire, broken, with just an intermittent spark from the electrical current jumping the gap, caused the power loss, as it well should have. Used another used plug wire to test it, and it ran like a champ once again. Plug wires replaced with new set, all done. But, Truck #2, 90 4-runner 22 re, 5spd had the same issue, sluggishness, no "oomph" anymore, and while it had a similar problem, the fix was expensive. The 90 4-runner had a bad plug wire closest to the firewall where it was arcing from the boot itself to the firewall, (another bad wire). So on that truck, it arced and somehow caused a surge? to the ECU, that told the motor to fire on only 2 cylinders. It was pretty funny actually after it was said and done because it took a loooooong time to hit 50 mph. Anyways new ECU, new plug wires, problem fixed. somehow there wasn't any damage to the distributor, as we thought would have surely happened.

Gevo

that is a very interesting problem... I'm curious what the cause is now, will be keeping up here.

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

just how bad is it??

Your used to driving those V8 trucks!!!

How many miles since the last tune up??

Being these fuel filters are a pain to change it might be the original one that could be the problem .

I need to change mine about once a year because of this ethanol in the gas.

Gamefreakgc

Who knows... you don't really know what it is until you get in there and start checking things. His fluids are good, that's a good start.

Check sensors, whip out your multimeter and just go down the list: ECT, VAFM, TPS, check for engine light, stored codes, O2 sensor.

Then check components like the spark plug wires, fuel pressure, fuel filter, ect. ect.

Then get to more expensive things like the cat. He's probably not going to want to dump money in it so that should be last on the list I would think.

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

When one does not drive these 4 cylinders for awhile.

I know I forget the lack of power these have even when running as good as they can.

when one goes from more then twice the horsepower it is a big jump.

thralldad

A bad TPS will make low power.

westjohns yota

sorry about the late response, im talking 2nd gear foot to the floor and you your scared to get in the passing lane slow, he called me yesterday, couldn't find anything in his records rthat shows a fuel filter change, and also, last tune up was 2 years ago, give or take a few months, im thinking fuel filter, and tune up should do the trick

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

It is never money wasted and gives you a starting base to work from.

Duffdog

I like the cat idea. I changed mine on my 87 to a high flow cat and got a noticeable top end power increase.

Another experience I had was with a 90 22re. Loss of power on that truck turned out to be the MAF. Dealer said it was not working right, replaced the whole unit and the power returned.

westjohns yota

not sure, supposed to do it today, just waiting for a phone call