KING

Well alot of you are pretty familiar with my temperature problems I have encountered in the past.

Well today, it went nuts.

After having my radiator opened up and rebuilt along with having the thermostat replaced, not to mention a complete spark plug tune-up and replaced fuel filter, my truck over heated today!

However, it didn't happen while driving the truck running, on street, it happened while starting it.

Remember how I would say that whenever I would come to a stop at some site, I'd shut the engine off and even after an hour of shutting it off, when I started it back up, the temp needle would jump from cold to half or If I was driving for a long time, to about 3/4. Now, as soon as I would start driving, it would go back to normal with no problems.

But this was on and on again. It happened everytime I did this.

Well today, I was driving, pulling a tralier. I stopped at this CIRCLE K and I only took about five minutes, well when I started it back up again, I saw the needle, like usual, go up, but I thought, well that's normal. As I was backing out, it suddenly the egine turned off automtically, so I quickly glance at my dash board, and yes, the needle was at the red part. So I shut the engine off completely (turing the key off all the way) and turned it on right away (Probably a big mistake) so I reved it up to about 1,500 RPM to get the water circulating, and yeah it cooled off a little, so I headed which would cool the engine to normal, and yes, it did as planned, but my truck never ran the same.

From the CIRCLE K to a work site, yes, the engine was doing a bit of shaking but I was getting throttle response and of course I had the A/C off.

However, after I left the work site, as I tried to get my speed up it just wasn't doing it. I floored the sucker and I thought it was going to choke on gas. No throttle response what-so-ever.

So there I am driving, trying to get home and as if things couldn't get any better, my check engine light came on, and dropped the RPM"s significanlty to 450 from 700 at idle position.

The engine was shaking and vibrating at the same time horribly and as I increased my speed, it seemed to be get even worse.

At one point even, my first gear didn't change until I hit the 35 mile mark, which was around 4500 RPM (I figured, since I don't have a TACH). I'm not sure but I thought the engine was going to blow up.

So I get home, put the computer on, and it's giving me a CODE 12:

NO RPM SIGNAL WHILE ECU CRANKING::

12 IS SET WHEN THERE IS A HARD FAILURE OF CKP OR CMP SENSOR OR DIST NOT ROTATING. ALSO CHECK SENSOR LEADS FOR INTERNAL BREAKAGE.

That's what the computer gave among other descriptions.

I know it's a long post, but if anyone would be willing to read it all and possibly give me some tips or whatever you can help on, that'd be appreciated.

KING

Los Gatos?

Honestly dude, I'd take it to the dealer, this sounds complicated.....

Until I read that code 12 stuff I was gonna say you should make sure your guage is working properly....

KING

No kidding, it does sound complicated to say the least.

I am afraid though, because I know that if I take it to the dealer, they are going shove me a bill of 2K, almost guaranteed. I wanna prevent from having that.

For now, my next door mechanic is trying to figure what's really wrong, as I am too.

I'm not sure what you meant with that last comment about the CODE.

Los Gatos?

Well I was skimming through it, I'm almost gaurenteed to have no idea what is wrong mechanically, but I noticed you said about guage stuff, well, my guage has shot up into real high temps and come down before, but I'm 100% convinced it was only the guage becaues it only happened 2x, not on hot days, and right after I restarted the truck.

KING

Well, I don't think I have guage problems, atleast that's not what I meant. What I meant was that my gauge was constantly going nuts, in coordination to the engine temp.

You see what I mean now?

And by the way, I live in PHOENIX, AZ. Need I say more?

I am in chat right now, if anybody wants to come up and go over this more carefully and thoroughly.

AgRunner06

I'm going to have to vote for the dealership too. It does sound pretty complicated. Man, I hope you didn't do any damage to the motor. Maybe you just melted a sensor. You should probably have them replace your water pump.

Good Luck

KING

Thank you for the quick response and your concern.

I too hope it's nothing with the engine, or else, I am screwed, BIG TIME!

I was kind of leery about taking it to the dealership, because as I have said before, the bill at the end of the party is not going to look pretty. Any little replacement and they wanna charge you $200, $300 bucks. The more I can prevent from taking it to the dealer the better, but I guess it's gonna be mandatory with this situation.

The water pump I've had on mind for quite some time now. I think it's about time to get to that, even though I don't think it has nothing to do with in this even, but still, it wont hurt.

If things don't go well, I may consider selling this and maybe heading somewhere else.

I'd love to own a TACOMA, but with the amount of problems I've had, my doubts hold be back, but that's still to see.

KING

NO ONE ELSE??

KING

Oh, c'mon. Someone's gonna have some advice or atleast something to say.

Tragic Drive

Have you checked the temp sensor out. I do know that the ECM use's the information from the sensor to adjust the Fuel, air mixture as well as timing advance. That alone could explain the rough idle you have .Also King when your guage reads red does it feel really hot under the hood I mean hotter than usual. You should be able to check the Ohms at the sensor and compare it to a given . What I mean is the temp sensor is an analog input its resistance will change as the tempature changes . If anyone has the factory manual they should be able to tell you what the resistance should be at a given Temp. I'm sorry if you have gone over all this before I'm new here and havnt read any of your threads on this yet. Goodluck !!!

KING

Thank you TRAGIC DRIVE, but it's fixed.

AgRunner06

So what was the problem? Have you figured out why you are overheating in the first place?

KING

I don't know why it overheated the way it did, but the reason why the engine light was on was because there was a wire not getting enuogh dirt which was causing the computer to act funny, therefore making the truck run bad.