89rustyred

New to the forums here. Love the wealth of information and am looking forward to trying some stuff out.

my 1989 4runner 3.0l 5spd manual started acting up and I need help diagnosing it. Starts and idles fine every time. After warming up the idle would drop to 500 and I would have no power driving it, tho i could rev the piss out of it in neutral. While driving, if I shut the engine off and coasted to the next red light, when starting again I would have full power for a few gears, then down to serious lag and seemingly missfire again. Ecu gave me a 22 and I changed the coolant temp sensor to no avail. Limited resources here so I cant bring 'er into a shop. Any advice out there? Thanks all.

Love this forum.

Some of the rigs Ive seen on here have got me inspired. Worst thing about this is I left my last 89 4runner in BC. It had the 22re which I loved, but it was a little tired and didnt like some of the hills I liked to climb. So I figured I'd go with the 6cyl and man I think I made a mistake. Read a quote earlier how the 3.0L has the gas consumption of an 8cyl and the power of a 4cyl. Truth is the engine has good power (before it started acting up) however it does suck back the gas. More so now then before.

hamish_18

is there any black smoke coming out when you are on the gas, and have no power? Only code was 22?? And I am assuming you have tried the normal things first? spark plugs, clogged fuel filter, changed cap and rotor???? Could be either fuel delivery, or spark.. I understand you are on a budget, but I would at least try those if they haven't been changed for a long time.

Also if its spark based, could you have a blown fuse? or alt. going bad? If not, then possible igniter. Just some things to get you started. Good luck man!

89rustyred

is there any black smoke coming out when you are on the gas, and have no power? Only code was 22?? And I am assuming you have tried the normal things first? spark plugs, clogged fuel filter, changed cap and rotor???? Could be either fuel delivery, or spark.. I understand you are on a budget, but I would at least try those if they haven't been changed for a long time.

Also if its spark based, could you have a blown fuse? or alt. going bad? If not, then possible igniter. Just some things to get you started. Good luck man!

Thanks for responding!

Ok, no smoke, clean exhaust. checked plugs, all clean, no fowling, did cap and router and changed fuel filter. my next steps are to test the fuel pressure and then bypass the cat. only thing is i dont have a fuel pressure tester and no way to weld the cat back on lol. any of this make sense? Am I headed in the right direction? Thanks again. I have a buddy who can help out here and there but he's a pretty busy guy. I would like to atleast narrow it down to one main cause before I bring it to him. what about a bad or clogged injector. could something like that be the culprit. I am hesitant to take the throttle body off => no cash for gaskets! lol.

89rustyred

UPDATE: So I cleared the ecu and drove it around for a day and it seems to have cleared itself up for the most part. runs good again with only the occasional bit of lag, idles perfect etc. what would cause that little bit of lag now and again? and I know these engines are reported to have very bad gas consumption, any tips on rectifying that?

forgot to mention I popped the rad cap off and let it run for 10 - 15 minutes hoping to clear any air out of the cooling system... not sure if that was the trick or not.