Charles M Kern

Hey guys, first post here, after searching and reading many

I bought my 3rd yota truck yesterday--a 1990 extended cab 5 speed with the 3vze. 191k, no rust, clean interior, and a nice topper. Paid $700 for it, including the tow to my place.

The previous owner is a friend. He said it had lost a lot of power so he parked it after he got a new truck. It sat for 2 years but it ran when it was parked, and he did start it from time to time. Without any professional diagnosis, he thought the engine had gone on him, but I find it hard to believe.

I charged the battery and checked the fluids--all good with no oil/water mixing going on.

It cranks fast, and I am getting a spark but it doesn't start. I sprayed some starting fluid in it and it still doesnt start or even hiccup.

I removed the dist cap to verify the rotor was spinning, and it is. I jumpered the fuel pump in the diag box and it is working--haven't checked the pressure though.

The impedance across the + and - of the coil read .06ohm which is correct, I believe, and I am getting a spark (verified by checking a plug wire against the block while cranking).

Any ideas where I can start next? What would you do if you were me? I'm not used to the efi thing and what really puzzles me is that I see spark and yet, starting fluid isn't even causing so much as a sputter

Could the timing belt have slipped causing the initial loss of power, then slipped more causing the valves/distributor to be off so much the engine won't even run on ether? Is there an easy way to check for that w/o removing the front belts/pullys?

Thanks in advance, hope I'm not missing something dumb!

Charles M Kern

Also, I checked for codes and none were present.

Charchee

If you have spark and it isn't hitting on ether, I would have somebody crank on it while you feel and smell what's coming out of the tail pipe. If your timing belt is slipping and your valves aren't moving correctly, your cylinders won't be able to bring in air or release exhaust. If it's not hitting, you should also be able to smell the ether coming out of the tail pipe. If not, you may have a problem with the valves. You could also check that you actually have fuel pressure by cracking the fuel line loose from the filter. I think it's inside the frame rail on the passenger side. Lastly, you could check to see that the throttle body is actually letting air into the manifold. Those are three things I can think of, off the top of my head, that you can check without taking a lot of stuff apart.

Charles M Kern

Those are some good ideas--I'll try them tomorrow when I have another set of hands and smell the tailpipe. I'll also crack the fuel line to see if it is making pressure--I do hear it running.
Ill also pull the intake off and take a peek at the throttle body and report back my findings.
Thanks for the suggestions!

Charchee

I was in your shoes a couple years ago when I bought my 89 4Runner "not running" for $300. After thinking about for a few minutes, I thought of something else I would check before you dive off too deep into it. Get yourself a simple cylinder compression tester from the parts store and test a few of the cylinders to see if the valves are working ok. You'll want to do it with the coil connector unplugged, by the way, so the truck doesn't actually try to start while you do it. Checking your compression is always a great starting point when you are troubleshooting an engine that you are not familiar with. Also, you said that the previous owner parked the truck because it had a major loss of power. That was the reason the previous owner of mine was going to sell it for scrap. Mine would run but barely. No power at all. I did a compression test and all of the cylinders had good compression, however three of them actually had higher than spec compression which is not what you would expect from a 3VZE with 212,000 miles on it. A while later I thought to get the engine running and then start pulling off plug wires one at a time while I listened for a change in the RPM. I found that three of the cylinders were not even working. When I looked back at my notes, I saw that the three that weren't working were the three with high compression readings. Long story short, it was the injectors. I'm not exactly sure what the correlation was but if you get similar compression readings on your cylinders, you may have a similar problem. Aftermarket injectors weren't expensive and not too bad to install. I'm not saying that's what is going on with yours but just thought I'd mention it.

Charles M Kern

Awesome and inspiring tips and I really appreciate it!

I feel like I might have gotten lucky with this truck.... If it was a 22re I'd be more excited, but if I can get it running then Im one lucky SOB.

Either way, it's easily worth the 700 I paid given the very good condition the truck is in in general. I went through the records (yes I have all of those, too!) and found that the truck has been maintained by a yota dealership it's whole life and had the HG replaced in the early 2000's which is promising, to me at least

Ill keep ya posted

Charchee

Did you ever get it running? Well guess what. I had my 89 out for a drive the other day and she just completely quit on me. Symptoms are just about exactly the same as yours. I've had a pretty rough week at work but I'm going to get to work on it today. Did a few tests over the last week and have narrowed it down a little. I plan on getting it figured out tonight. Let me know how far you have gotten with yours and I'll catch you up to where I'm at, if you aren't already ahead of me, and we can work together on it. We may be able to help each other out. If anybody else is having similar issues, jump on in. I have just about a complete electrical system from an 88 3VZE laid out on my bench to do tests on. Maybe we can get somebody's figured out this weekend.

Charchee

I got mine going. Kinda got lucky, maybe. Mine turned out to be the ECM. I checked my relays and then went straight to the source since I had a spare computer. Plugged it up and she started right up. I would like to know what killed the original one but that's going to be hard to do. Before I took it out I washed it. I had the passenger side window cracked and got quite a bit of water in the seat and the floorboard where the ecm is mounted. Maybe I got it a little wet and shorted it out but who knows.