Intermittent Starting Issue After Transmission Replacement
 

It's been quite a while since I've visited the site, but thanks in advance for any help and guidance you fine folks can provide.

I have a 2000 4Runner SR5 V6 with an automatic transmission (~170K miles)

My transmission basically blew up, so I just recently finished swapping mine for a used transmission.

Everything seems to be fine except for a couple of issues...

First is that it has thrown the code P0135 2 times. I'm think I can figure this one out, but would appreciate any insight.

Second, and most problematic for me, is that intermittently my truck won't start. It seems fine most of the time, but occasionally when I try to start it, it just does nothing. Doesn't even attempt to turn over. I can try several times and have the same result. However, when I leave the key on, put it into drive and then back into park and try again, it will start fine.

I figure it must be thinking it's not in park on the times that it won't start, but I'm not sure of that.

Is there a sensor or something that tells the ignition whether or not it's in park? Is there something else I should be looking into? Could the code I mentioned above be related at all?.... or is that just a separate issue (perhaps something I failed to hook up correctly or that got damaged during the swap?).

Thanks in advance for your help!

When you replaced the transmission there's linkage on the driver side where the console linkage hooks up to the transmission that controls what gear it's in. There's a lot of adjustment in that linkage. I'll bet it's just misadjusted and not quite going fully into park. There is a "park/neutral" switch in the shifter console that will not allow the truck to start unless it's in park or neutral.

Your PO135 is simply your front o2 sensor going out. The heating element has failed. Truck will probably drive fine without the heating element after the truck is warmed up. You should probably thing about replacing that soon though. You'll want a Denso o2 sensor (although I run Bosch screw in universal sensors and do just fine)

Thanks for the advice... What you're suggesting sounds like it's likely the problem.

I'll see if I can figure out how to adjust it.

I will post once i've tried and let you know if that was it or not... I'm going out of town for a week tomorrow morning, so it may be a week or so until I can work on it.

Thanks a ton!

Holy cow... just looked up prices on the O2 sensor... they little boogers are expensive! Yikes.

Go to urdusa.com and get the Denso part number you need for your application, then check the price on Amazon for that number. That's usually the best deal on an OE Denso sensor.