I have a 1985 4runner with 119k original and an auto. We went 4wheeling last weekend and everything went as expected. Two days and 150 miles later, I start it up and the idle is really rough, it has no power when driving and sounds like it wants to die. This seems like a vacuum leak, but I replaced the air filter, checked all of the hoses, re-clamped the hose connecting the throttle body to the airbox and it still does the same thing. We sprayed carb cleaner all over all of the lines and the intake manifold (very sketch) and idle didn't jump at all. It is the weirdest thing, because it happened all of a sudden...I feel like it is something small, but I have no idea what it is. The symptoms are still the same: rough idle, no power when driving, when its in neutral and you give it gas it acts fine above idle. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

welcome to YT first off. It almost sounds like it has to be a vacuume line somewhere. You might want to double check maybe even a cracked line.

 

Thanks for the hospitality. Yeah I double checked again this morning and it really appears like there are no cracks on any of the hoses. I might grab my buddies propane torch and try it with that. There is nothing blocking the hose from the throttle body to the airbox that I can tell. The spark plugs all seem to be firing and the their hoses seems to be working...I'm really not sure what the problem is. Maybe its the distributor. Any more suggestions?

 

Im not there - but maybe its ignition related?

 

I don`t have a 4 Runner, but ive heard people talk about the conectors that plug into the fuel injectors become coroded and also if you strip back the cover on the wiring harness there is a butt conector were all the wires from the fuel injector plugs come together and that can also corode, what most have done there is solder that conection. maybe this will help you.

 

Just a shot in the dark here, grab a timing light and check your timing. Chances are you streched your timing chain. If your timing jumps around or doesn't show on the right side of the balancer (make sure you got the right plug wire hooked up) this can indicate a stretched or jumped chain. This happened to me in my Celica (22R). Hope this helps.

 

My next step was to check the timing...I think that is probably what it will end up being. I must have jumped that chain while wheeling...Gotta love the consequences of wheeling.

 

it was the timing after all...that disc can loose somehow...I don't think it was from wheeling though...it is really weird, but it runs normally now. Great suggestions guys.

 

Glad we could help!