last week on a rainy drizzly day my truck decided to start stalling while i'm driving her. sometimes it's almost unnoticeable, the CEL just flashes real quick, but other times she full-on stalls and pops - bucks really hard. I'm worried this will eventually screw up my drivetrain components, not to mention it scares the crap out of me when it happens. as far as i can tell it's random, it's happened in every gear but first and at every rpm, while accelerating and while coasting (tho not coasting out of gear, yet). not more when she's hot or cold, within so long of start up or after so long of driving. the weather doesn't seem to make any difference, either. all the electrical is stock, and fairly clean (you can check the recent pics on my build up thread) with the exception of the spliced alternator pigtail. I grabbed one from the junkyard from an '85 and the end was different, so i spliced it with the unmelted end from the one from my truck, about 6 months ago. The only other issue i kno of at the moment is the battery isn't holding a charge for more than a day or two. any ideas??

 

no ideas?

 

That`s probably your problem right there, If the battery isn`t holding a charge or isn`t being charged that can and will cause your truck to buck or stall. The electrical system needs to maintain a certain voltage for everything to operate properly. So replace the battery and make sure the alternator is charging the battery and that will probably solve your problem.

 

word. thanks. I think it's still under warranty, so i'll just bring it back down. It was my first guess, I was just hoping that if that didn't pan out i would have an idea of where to go next.

 

CEL is also your ignition light...

If you turn the key to ACC, and it's not on, your ignition is not armed...

I had a T that had an intermittent shut off and run... GOD what a PITA... Lost the truck b/c of it.

It cut off with me one time in a construction zone with NO emergency access YIKES! And an 18 wheeler was coming up behind me...

Nobody could find the problem as it was "A loose tooth never hurts in the dentists chair".

Finally had Toyota look at it and it was a bad connection at the EFI or IGnition fuse under the hood...

The cheapest I've ever gotten away from the dealer...

 

when i key up most of the dash lights click on, including CEL. as long as it comes on and stays on 'til i start it she's good, tho, yes?

 

yes. No CEL on/at start, and it won't start...

 

K. if it starts doin that, i'll know what to do. thanks!

 

i experimented on the way to school this morning, i left my stereo off for the entire ride, and i had no stalling problems. since my amp draws a fair amount of juice, i'm guessing that it's drawing too much from my compromised battery. the only question is why did it just start doing it when the amp has been hooked up for several months on said battery? so the plan now is to hit up autozone after class and have them test the alternator and probably replace the battery. hopefully the alternator is ok, i just replaced it earlier this year.

 

I've heard hi-zoot amps can be rough on a charging system, possibly due to the sharp peaks and valleys of draw...might want to slap a capacitor on that sucker once you have your electrical system back in shape.

 

thanks, mountaingoat. i'll go down to the stereo shop and ask them, i really don't know much about stereos, other than how to connect all the wires. I got the battery replaced today, the old one was bad (according to the machine), but the warranty was good, so she seems to be alright now. I had headlights and stereo on at the same time earlier, no prob. Keepin' my fingers crossed, tho.

 

ok, so keeping my fingers crossed apparently isn't going to fix the problem. new battery, and i cleaned up and re-spliced the alternator pigtail, it had gotten loose. it ran great no stall for two days after that. but i took her on a long run yesterday and she started stalling on the way back. alot. with even less consistency. now also stalling with the stereo completely off, almost always on big bumps, but still no pattern in terms of gears or rmp. given the bump thing, i'm guessing i have something loose, it's just a matter of figuring what, and where... so now i guess i'm back at square one. guess it serves me right for rejoicing mentally that i didn't have any electrical problems after reading some the problems other users have.