Bojangles

Ive seen a lot of people have this problem, and i think ive finally found a solution...

__THE PROBLEM__


Ive noticed that during a heavy rain/after i wash my truck/after wheeling in wet conditions/or even hitting a decent puddle...Occasionally i will loose all acceleration until i put my pedal to the floor, then it kicks in and accelerates like a bat out of hell, But smooth. (It almost feels like driving the 22re with 44" tires and stock gears)

Some people have been lucky enough to fix this problem with an O2 sensor, AFM, TPS, Plugs, Wires, Cap, Rotor, Fuel filter, All kinds of stuff...

But some of us have NOT been that lucky, Replacing all of these parts because it worked for that guy...But it didn't work for us...
Therefore we are still dealing with that lack of power occasionally...

Usually after the truck gets out of the wet conditions, it will dry out and run perfectly fine within 2 to 4 hours...But people are driving themselves crazy trying to figure out what's causing this. (I know i did)

Now, Some toyota's have been fortunate enough to have been garage kept and not suffer any of the outside weather conditions, therefore most everything is in good shape (Gaskets, Seals, Weather stripping. ETC ETC)....When i bought my truck this was not the case.

I noticed after a heavy rain one day when i got in my truck that my passenger side floor mat had water sitting in it...
When i thought about it, no one had ridden in the passenger side, so there was no possibility of water off of they're feet.

Upon further investigation...Ive found out that our toyota's are somewhat common for leaking somewhere behind the dashboard...(Bottom of windshield? Firewall? im not 100% sure where).

Then i began to think about how the Computer/ECU is under the passenger side dashboard of our toyotas, Mounted to the firewall.

If you look at your ECU, it may be corroded, This is because water has been dripping onto the ECU which in theory shorts the computer out to a certain extent, thus making the truck run pretty bad...Surprisingly i have been fortunate and have not burned up my computer...Everything still runs perfect...when its dry out...

__THE SOLUTION__

Ive been told by a few people you could use 10 tubes of caulk and you'll never stop the leak...I dont believe that because you can seal anything up with a tube of liquid nails lol.

So im guessing if you find the source of your leak, It should be fairly easy to seal it up.

If you CANNOT SEAL THE LEAK, The alternate solution is to get a "Glad Container POTLUCK SIZE" (Im guessing on the size) from wal-mart and some caulk...
Your going to take the glad container and lay it upside down on a table, take a razor knife and cut about a 1/3 of the bottom off (for ventilation) and caulk it to the firewall AROUND the ECU with the cuttout bottom facing down.

This will cause the water to drip onto the Glad container and around the ECU, while providing ventilation...

Rigging at its finest, I know.
But if it works, Im happy!

I have not personally tried this because i just dont have the time to pull my dash board out of the truck working 7 days a week, but i have given this advice to a few who were personally having the problem and it has worked out great.

Please post your follow up results and let me know what you figure out, If it works, And any improvements or changes you had to make to me theory.

Happy wheeling everyone




PS. I also failed to mention this is pretty common among our trucks 86 through 95 as Mudhippy stated below...

The symptoms are common with 22RE but i have not heard any stories or problems with the 6 cylinders.


Thanks mudhippy

muddpigg

iTrader: (1)

Another common solution is to relocate the ECM. Deep water will kill the ECM and also trail damage. I moved mine into the grove box.


Thanks for the write up.

yeehaw1

I have the leak in my passenger floorboard too. I've tore the dash out set it in the garage, and looked for a leak in a rainstorm, and cannot find one, I wonder where it could be coming from?

stock87

I'll try and describe where I found it on mine. On the outside of the truck, above the hood is the vent panel. If you take that off, the next layer down is the metal where the windshield wiper transmission mounts. If you reach through the vent holes and feel near the passenger side, you'll feel where the cab fan air intake is. That bottom most piece of metal is what you can see/feel under/behind the dashboard in the cab.

In order:

Exterior vent panel
Wiper mounting surface
Solid firewall

If you feel on the extreme far passenger side, past the cab air intake, where that bottom most piece of metal meets the inner fender, that's where mine was leaking. I have pretty skinny arms and it was pretty hard for me to get my hand in there, but I smeared some silicone all around the air intake, as well as in the corner where the bottom layer of metal meets the inner fender.

Also if you lie on your back in the passenger footwell and shine a light straight up, you may be able to see the problem from there as well. It's a real pain to get to, but if you smear enough silicone in the corner, you'll get it.

On east coast trucks I'm sure it's rust, but on west coast trucks it's just factory sealer that dries out and cracks over time.

jstluise

Excellent! I am glad I saw this! I had a leak much like described in this thread, and I automatically went to the window seal. I know it was leaking, because the window seals was dried out and cracked, mostly on the lower passenger side corner. I spent a weekend trying to fix the leak. I essentially cut out the entire lower half of the window seals, and injected the professional grade urethane (sticky stuff!) back between the window and the body. I smoothed the urethane out so no water would puddle up and sit.

I was VERY confident that I sealed up the window, but a few days later when it rained I still had drips on my floormat...not nearly as much water as before, but still some. With the pillar trim off, I couldn't see anywhere were it was coming in. I was stumped until NOW! It has to be from the air intake...I hope!

skoti89

not to hijack, but can I ask you how hard it was to relocate the computer?

MudHippy

Nice descriptive! I couldn't have said it better myself.

I had the exact same leak, and fixed it in almost the exact same manner. It was actually one of the simplest fixes I've had the pleasure of dealing with so far on my rig.

BTW, to the OP, this problem is not 22RE specific. The symptoms may be, but the leak is fairly common to ALL 86-95 trucks and 4Runners. Mine has a 3VZE, and that didn't help at all. It never affected the engine's performance, or caused the corrosion of any electrical circuits in the ECU(luckily!). I just got sick of mopping up the passenger side floorboard every time it rained.

Bojangles

You are exactly right, the leaking problem is actually pretty common...As you said, you had the leak but none of the symptoms.
I apologize and im editing my orignal post

874runnersr5

This is annoying the crap outta me, i need to figure it out.. i dont notice any water on the ecu( i have no kick panels and no carpet, floor is bedlined.) and now its been raining and doing this.. im so lost. I have a spare igniter/coil i was going to swap in but its a different part # then my current one so i dunno.

I noticed some corroded wires on the igniter so was hoping it would be a easy swap.. I noticed if i go WOT it kinda gets better and has more pickup and go..

Mark Andrew

Here's a video of my fix, water was getting in connectors to ECU. http://youtu.be/rTLxVzmKVB8

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

I only drive on dry Sunny days when the temperature is below 20 Degrees F

No problems with liquid water

I always wanted a grove box !!