The Ruckus

It all starts with a father, a young son, and a Home Depot parking lot that doubles as a flood plain for an entire shopping development. What can i say, "Daddy, drive through the _________!" is kryptonite for my better judgement. Especially when Mommy isn't in the car.

Anyway, the water was good and deep. Probably 16-20" range at the deep spots. I spend A LOT of time at that particular parking lot, but I made a couple of slow passes to ensure there were no new hidden potholes, etc. due to the flooding. After it was all checked out, we went for a couple bomber runs through it. Rooster tails, water over the hood, giggles from the back seat. It made his day. Then, on the way home, I noticed a slight hesitation/gurgle at about 2200 RPM. Clearly, water had gotten in somewhere. I held it at about 1300-1500 for a minute or two, below the point where the hesitation kicked in, but thought maybe the engine temp couple boil off whatever had gotten in there. It seemed to improve the revs, and really only gave me one more slight hiccup as I pulled out from the lot onto the road. After that, it idled clean and ran through the normal RPM range from red lights to 45 mph, and back down again a half dozen times before we got home.

I somewhat hesitantly parked it. It's not my daily driver, but I drove it a couple more times over the next couple weeks. Over that time the weather was up and down, temp wise. We got into some negative temps, and one morning when I went to pull it out from the side yard, it was like I was towing an overweight trailer. It would rev fine in neutral, it would back up just fine, but moving forward (I tried AWD and 4 high also) it just crept at what felt like 1/3 pace, and acted like it didn't want to move. I even got out to see if I was frozen down, or spinning mud. I got it out to the driveway and figured if it was broken, it was broken... so I pulled out onto the street and gave it the gas. after about 30 feet it got past whatever the issue was, and has been running and driving normal since. Only thing is, now I've got a CEL on (planning to check it out this weekend- again, not my daily driver).

O2 sensor? damn near hydrolocked? I've got the deckplate mod, but it was closed and sealed. What says the group?

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Who knows with the code . Might not be related to your boating trip.

I carry a code reader in every OBII vehicle. I want to know ASAP what code tripped.

The not wanting to move I venture frozen dirt or ice on mechanical brake parts . Once some heat was generated things broke loose.

vasinvictor

iTrader: (3)

I'll bet your CEL will shine some light on the situation. Wouldn't try to do too much speculating until then.

The Ruckus

Here's the trip - I drove it to work yesterday (13 miles) and when I started it up to go home, it went away. Doesn't change the fact that it needs to be checked out to see what the code was and if the bulb isn't just burned out, but that always seems to be the luck. Wait weeks to ask the question, and as soon as you do the truck say "oh, sorry- nothing to see here."

The Ruckus

I picked up a BFX bluetooth OBDII scanner yesterday. No recorded engine faults. At least that tells me that it isn't an ongoing issue hidden by a burned out idiot light.

The Ruckus

CEL came back on over the weekend. Plugged in the scanner this morning, reads as p0136, O2 sensor circuit malfunction (Bank 1 sensor 2).

Reading up on, it looks like it could be things other than the sensor, like the exhaust leak that I can hear from inside the cab. Or bank 1 sensor 1 acting up, and tricking sensor 2 into thinking something is wrong. I don't have a graphing multi-meter, looking to see if the scanner can pull real-time data from each sensor on the way home.

vasinvictor

iTrader: (3)

V6 or 4 cyl? If you can hear an exhaust leak that could very well be the problem. If you can read live O2 data (bluetooth adapter and torque app) you can see if your O2 sensor is working properly. Seems pretty straight forward. A bad o2 will definitely give you a bogging feeling. So will a cracked manifold before the first o2.

The Ruckus

It's a 6. I can definitely hear a leak somewhere mid-cabin. Running the torque app, the live data on bank 1 sensor 1 produced a consistent wave. Bank 1 sensor 2 was flatline the entire drive.

vasinvictor

iTrader: (3)

Sensor 2 doesn't affect driveability whatsoever. It measures catalyst output aft the cat. Can you see your long term fuel trims, and what are they?

The Ruckus

I'll drive it to work tomorrow and see; I've only been monkeying with the app off and on for a couple weeks between two different vehicles, not entirely sure what the data the 4runner puts out. I think I recall fuel trim reading being lit up green (meaning they can be read/displayed), if they are I'll put them on a graph and try to record.