partial tuneup.

Seafoamed the intake, cleaned the throttle body, changed plugs, did oil and filter change, inspected plug wires, and cleaned my K&N yesterday. Ran out of daylight so I left it at my folks house and got cranking on it this morning when I got outta bed.

Last nite I had a spark plug that wasn't seated properly and the boot from the wire popped off. Rethreaded it today and got the plug back in. Truck did start last nite but was running very rough, my guess is from the loose boot. Turned it off and like I said, it sat until this morning.

Now when I turn it over, the starter cranks, the fuel pump is sending fuel down the line, but it won't actually ignite. To the point where I can smell fuel. I've checked all the lines out of the distributor cap,
and at the motor and they're all solidly connected.

For that matter, my cold start injector has been bypasses since the winter when it wouldn't shut off due to corrosion in the harness and dumped about 2G of fuel into the motor.

I've checked grounds, tried to run codes (just get a rapidly blinking CEL light and nothing else), and made sure every vac line was solid.

There is one plug that is unplugged from before (no idea how) on the passenger side of the intake manifold, about halfway down the block right near where the fuel line enters. Anyone know what that is? can't seem to locate it in the haynes or FSM.

What gives? Anybody have a suggestion?

Thanks guys, I need to get this fixed so I can get to work today!!

 

14 views and no response?

Nailed it down to no spark. Checked it and nothing off the dist. Regrounded the igniter and still nada.

Anyone have a good source for cheap dists and igniters?

 

Check the coil wires, make sure they are seated well. Ran fine before this? Odds it going bad just tuning up seem awfully coincidental. If your luck runs that good, you might be have a good chance at the lottery!

 

My mechanic can't figure it out either.

He tested the coils, the distributor, and the igniter, and no luck. The ECU isn't throwing codes, either. Tomorrow he says he's going to trace down the harness and see if there's a corroded wire or something thats grounding out, just like when my cold start injector went. (short answer on that one, the CSI went and dumped nearly 2gallons of gas into the motor with no spark to speak of. Art wound up bypassing it and rewiring some of the harness that had corroded.)

My guess is that the patch possibly came loose or that there is some other corrosion around there thats causing this problem.

In the meantime, I'm running $20 a day on my rental Hyundai to get around town. And my bearingsm hub rebuild kits, rotors, pads, and stainless lines just came today from WabFab. All these parts and no truck to put 'em on!

 

Bump...

 

Bump... nobody? Just ordered a "new" ecu off 4RunnerConnection on ebay. If not anything I have a backup.

 

if the distibutor pick up fails, then the ignitor wont work.

on the next generation trucks, toyota used a coating on the throttle body. and when you clean it off, it will either not run at all, or have a really high idle.

but i dont think the coating is on this gen

 

have you checked the rotor? have you done a resistance check on your wires(specifically you coil wire) -- you didnt break the coil wire, did you?

did your timing move ? seems highly unlikely but i am trying to think of all possible causes here, cuz noone likes rental cars.

clogged fuel filter(that would be a first i have seen)
I know you said you think it is spark, but it might be a long shot, but 1) do you have the AFM hooked up and air cleaner on? 2) you might stick your hand in the afm and make sure the flapper is moving

 

another one i have done in the past is to hold the spark plug wire just off the plug and see if the spark jumps or not

I am not recommending you do this, do it at your own risk if you do



Is your spark plug gap correct? did you break the ceramic piece on one maybe?

 

Didn't break the coil wire, and tested for spark off the dist and coil and nothing. I don't think the wires are faulty, i was extremely careful removing them. Checked the boots for any debris/abrasions and cracks and they looked bueno.

I did remove the distributor initially after it wouldnt restart, but did it the way the Haynes book stated. And put it back on properly.

Not likely the fuel filter, since I could smell gas dumping into the motor.

AFAIK, everything was hooked back up properly. When I did the K&N cleaning, I removed the air intake hoses and silencer, and cleaned them with throttle body cleaner and let them dry for several hours before they went back on. Tell you what, though- there was a ton of oil in the silencer. Makes me wonder about doing the ISR mod later on if the breather is kicking that much into the intake! For all I know this could have been the first time in 17 years it had been cleaned, though.

Interesting- I did a quick throttle body cleaning with carb cleaner, as I've done on numerous other vehicles I've owned over the years. Light spray, clean rag underneath, etc. What exactly is this coating?

Did check the spark the old fashioned way. No luck at all.

As I wrote above, the other stuff i did that day with regards to the intake was run a half a can of Seafoam via the brake booster into the intake. But this was several hours prior to changing plugs, etc. remarkable how much better she ran after that.


Thanks for the responses, guys. Any other suggestions?

 

Oh, something else I noticed-- When I tried to see if I could pull a code off the ECU, and jumped the two pins on the diag. plug, the CEL just flashed rapidly. Tell tale sign of a shot ECU or just no code to be thrown?

 

Just got the Chop back, ran about 20 miles around town and its purring like a kitten.

The issue: The coil was shot. And I mean shot. Burned out entirely. On top of that, apparently the distributor was off a couple teeth, so even with the new coil installed it was misfiring. No idea there.

But nonetheless, its running smooth, with exception of a small valve tap. Not anything huge, but I'll handle it by next oil change. Seafoaming the intake really helped. Much quieter (i can hear the tap now), and smoother acceleration. Most likely a combination of the seafoam, cleaning the throttle body, and new plugs/coil.

My rig is back!!! Got me a smile ear to ear. Now to install all that stuff I've had from the Wabbit for the past couple weeks! (and some sliders a member here is shipping me! )

 

which coil was shot? The pickup coil (in the distributor, also called a signal generator), or the ignition coil?

 

Ignition coil was gone.