Hey guys -

New to Toyota's as well as the yotatech forums. I purchased my first Toyota in September. An '85 EFI 4x4 solid axle extracab 5 speed with the engine pulled. I took my time getting the extracted and disassembled 22re it came with back together and back in the truck. Long story short, 2 months later it was a road worthy rig on 33's...

A few weeks ago after nearly 1000 perfect road/snow wheelin miles I was cruising up a mild grade paved road in 4th gear around 2000 rpm when the engine simply turned off without warning. All the gauge cluster lights came on and the truck fired its self back up and all the warning lights were gone as if nothing happened. This whole event took place in maybe half a second. Hardly skipped a beat. This exact occurrence took place again just another mile down the road.

I continued on, this time in 5th gear around 1500 rpm the truck shut off and did not restart its self. I shifted to N and while still rolling at a good speed I tried cranking the engine. The starter kicked on but it wouldn't fire. After coming to a stop and contemplating for a few minutes I pulled the coil wire off the distributor and checked for spark while my girlfriend cranked the engine. No spark -

Maybe 10 minutes went by while I traced wires. I decided to check for spark again since everything seemed in place. This time there was plenty of spark. Zapped myself good - I plugged the wire back into the distributer and cranked it. Engine fired right up and ran great. 10 seconds later it was as if someone reached over and turned the key off. It died - Tried cranking it again and nothing, it wouldn't start. After sitting for 5 minutes it fired right back up.... For 10 more seconds. It shuts off without choking or giving any warning. It simply looses spark. We ended up tow roping it home with my girlfriends Jeep.

Any help, any direction, any ideas would be greatly appreciated. BTW the coil is 1k-mi new and tests good with a multimeter and the igniter worked fine when I hooked it up to a buddies 22re to test it.

The best part of this is that I can tell people I have a 10 second Toyota and hold a straight face.

Thanks guys, looking foreword to your feed back and glad to be here on Yotatech.

Tim

 

Welcome to Yota Tech!!

You are sure it is an electrical ignition issue??

Have you checked the ground for the ECU on the intake manifold then the rest of the ground connections.

Perhaps something vibrated loose during your last few miles.

When these failures happened did the CEL light and have you pulled the code or codes??

Should give you a place to start.

 

go over all your grounds!! especially your injector wiring. don't just wiggle em,take them loose and clean them and re-install.

 

Ended up being a loose connection to the coil... It was blatantly simple but I managed to over look it even after wiggling the very wire that was loose. Ended up replacing several grounds and the hot lead to the 80amp relay on the pass fender wall. Ripped out a rats nest of a 1980's car alarm in the process too while chasing wires.. All in all a good deal. Thanks for the help guys!