mmcpeck

Disconnected my battery to clean up the posts a little (just tinkering, no problems), took off the Neg cable and got distracted by my wife calling me inside for something, about an hour later went back out and just hooked it back up, didn't clean anything because I had to go out and it was getting dark. When I re-connected the Neg cable all the lights started to blink on and off, like my Hazard lights were on, not headlights, just parking lights.

It did that for about a minute then stopped on it's own. Shut the hood, put some stuff away and went to go out somewhere about 10 minutes later, opened the door and all the lights started blinking again, including the dash lights.

Put the key in and started it up before it finished blinking, started fine same as always, then after idling for a minute it started idling low and sounded like it was missing.

Backed out and when I started to go it had a definite miss. Went down the street a bit and noticed it happening most prominently when starting from a stop, especially if you hit the gas hard. Drove around a bit and it seemed to get a little better as it heated up, but still noticeable.

CANNOT figure out what in the Hell could have gone wrong from disconnecting a battery cable. I have changed hundreds of batteries and I have never seen a car blink all the lights when it gets re-connected, or have a dead miss afterwards.

I didn't touch anything else AT ALL on the truck, didn't knock anything off or disconnect anything else.

Is there some type of procedure you need to do on these or for Toyota in general when you re-connect the battery???

I assume I reset the ECM when I had the battery disconnected, could that be the problem, is there anything I need to do for that???

Any help is appreciated, things like this drive me NUTS!!

Thanks.

abecedarian

does the truck have any alarm or anti-theft mechanism installed from the factory or aftermarket?

as for the misfiring, that's a hard one to say. maybe drive it a few days and see if the problem subsides.

mmcpeck

Yeah it actually does have an old afterkarket alarm still in it, it doesn't work anymore, I don't even have a keypad thing for it, the valet switch doesn't do anything either, I actually just cut the horn out of it the other day, it wasn't making any noise, just figured I'd pull it out of the way, it still has the little Red LED on the dash though, just stays lit all the time. Guess that would explain the blinking lights huh?

Would that have anything to do at all with the miss? I can't see it having anything to do with it, unless there was some kind of anit-theft thing or a remote start maybe. I will play around with the valet switch, on the off chance it is interfering.

You know I did notice the other day that there are Autolite plugs in it, which I assume are not the right plugs. Was gonna get around to putting NGK's in, but maybe I will do it now just to see.

Is there any other procedure to do after re-connecting a battery in these. I have never heard of anything in all my years of working on cars, but these 3VZE's seem very testy and delicate to me, I fell like I am always gonna break it.


By the way abecedarian....Do you really climb cell towers? I saw a show on that the other night, crazy job man, you got big balls!!

Thanks for the help.

RobD

About all I can think of is make sure your ground is absolutely tight and you don't have intermittent connection.

Then you might have to wait for the computer to re-learn the idle of the truck. It will probably run better after a couple hours.

mmcpeck

Thanks Rob. Is that normal for the computer to have to re-learn the idle after being disconnected from power for a while?

Just seems weird that and engine would run like crap after every time the battery is disconnected. But then again, I have only heard bad things about the 3Slow/3Crap/3Turd/3POS.....all names I've seen on here, hahaha.

I am gonna put NGK's in it, and run it for a while over the next couple of days and see if it gets better.

I have heard about disconnecting the battery and having the tranny ECM re-learning shift patterns after changing fluid, but never heard about the main engine ECU having to re-learn idle. I guess if it is true for one it would be for the other.

Thanks.

abecedarian

yes, I really do that.
...and honestly, big balls would get in the way of the harness i have to wear.

mmcpeck

Just ran it for about 2 hours, still idling like crap and missing/hesitating when starting from a stop.

Cannot believe that disconnecting the battery does this to this POS!!!

This thing has been running perfect. Block rebuilt by Toyota 10K ago, whatever they consider a "rebuild", and they put new injectors in. Now I take a damn battery cable off and it stumbles all over the place.

Toyota should be embarassed that they ever produced such a POS engine!!!

What do you need a friggin factory procedure to re-connect the battery properly to this piece of crap??

coolthew

It totally sounds like an electrical problem. I had a similar situation in which an aftermarket alarm+killswitch made everything freak out.

I would recommend ripping that thing out right away!

The computer does do a little re-learning of the idle after disconnect, but it only takes a few seconds in my experience.

Keep us posted!

STEVE_R

MMMM, well, i must say, that's a new one ! I also have the factory alarm and as yours,does not work. i just put a new battery in mine and have had the old one out a couple of times, but have not had any problems with it missing or going all nightrider on me. huh, ok, bad analogy, blinking lights!

iselloil

Yank the old alarm.its under the steering colum,in between the harness.pull it. Check for codes.Maybe then pull the battery again.

mmcpeck

Alright well I don't really have any kind of useful information as far as a fix, but I came home from work, started it up, let it idle for about 10 minutes. It started fine, then sounded like maybe it stumbled for a bit, once the "cold" high idle dropped off.

I listened under the hood to see if I could pinpoint the miss but couldn't. Reved it up slowly a couple of times, not high just to about 2K or so, and it seemed to rev fine.

Let it idle for a bit longer and went out for a drive.....ran perfect. Drove around for a bit, stop and go, no stumble. Punched it off the line a couple of times, no hesitation or stumble just shot right off the line.

Who knows, maybe it was a coincidence, maybe the battery being disconnected didn't do anything, I don't know.

I agree I do need to get that alarm out of there though, I thought it had been fully disconnected because the LED was always lit and the valet switch doesn't do anything, you can't get the LED to go off by flipping the switch one way or the other, but obviously there's still some stuff in there that needs to be ripped out.

The reason I disconnected the battery was because I had just changed the ATF the day before and had read somewhere that disconnecting the battery would reset the tranny ECM and force it to re-learn the shift patterns, and it was best practice to do this when chnaging fluid. I had to clean the posts up a bit anyway, so I tried it, even though I have never heard of this.

Is that true by any chance? Is it a good idea to disconnect the battery after changing your ATF? Does it really do anything? I feel no difference in shifting.

By the way sorry for the rant against the 3VZE up there before, didn't mean to offend anybody who has it, I actually think it's a pretty decent motor.

I just go through a kind of process when crap goes wrong with my cars or boat. It's like a grieveing process....I start out in Denial, then move to Frustration, then Anger, then I finally settle down and try to figure it out.

Thanks for the help.