Hey All,

New to these forums and my first post here. Just going to explain what happened first and go from there.

1993 Toyota 4Runner 22RE -- 5-Speed Manual

I was driving at about 50mph on the interstate taking an entrance ramp on a slight downward slope to get onto the next interstate. All of the sudden I can tell I'm down on power and the engine does not sound quite right(mind you it's loud in the cabin and I'm a bit hard of hearing). As I put the clutch in to shift from 2nd to 3rd the electronics go crazy, the speedo and tach are bouncing all over the place, and the motor sounds like it dies pretty quick, then no dash lights, no signals, no headlights nothing and I coast to stop on the shoulder of the interstate. I test the battery voltage with a multimeter and it's reading a steady 12.6v even when cranking(had a friend to help). When the key is moved to the run position the efi relay clicks and the starter relay clicked quite rapidly so we replaced that but it did not help. I figure its somewhere in the main battery cable or a fusible link somewhere but the dome light still works and occasionally the dash lights for the seatbelt, parking brake, cel, etc. will come on. If anyone has experienced this or has any input it would be appreciated, The wiring has been messed with by previous owners but the main fuse block and harness seem (mostly) intact.

Recently Replaced Parts:
New Ignition Coil
New Distributor Rotor
New Distributer Cap
New Spark Plugs
New Spark Plug Wires
New Starter
New Starter Relay
LCEngineering Long Headers w/ a full Magnaflow Exhaust built out by a shop

 

So it will crank over with no dash lights? Id start wiggling wires to see if you can find the trouble area if its bad wiring from the po.

shem

 

Apologies I should have been more specific, while I am *attempting to crank* aka keying the ignition there's no voltage drop on the battery, meaning since it is a new(3 months old) battery it's almost certainly not the issue. It does not crank at all.

--David

 

If the battery voltage doesn't change at all when you go to crank, something is definitely NOT working right. The voltage should take a pretty sharp dip when cranking, as the starter is a fairly high load on it.

Absolutely check all your fusible links, the battery terminals, and their associated wires and cables. Especially the high power cables to the starter. Both positive AND negative. Ground, or return, is just as important as the hot side of things.

If I were to guess, and I am, I would take a close look at the 80 A fusible link first. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything to check them all, really. You're getting power to the dome light circuit, obviously, but not a lot else. You need to look at the schematic for your truck, and see what all that "stuff" has in common. Again, both the hot AND return sides of the house.

Good luck!
Pat☺

 

Hey Pat,

Thanks for the thoughtful response, I'll take a look at that main fusible link tomorrow morning and check my grounds again. Then start tracing wires/cables as long as my brain will permit after a full day at work 👉

--David

 

Wanted to update this post, after a lot of wiring tracing and replacing parts it turns out the motor seized(90% sure). Going to be taking the motor apart this weekend to see what happened but a brand new 22RE from toyotatruckengine.com(the Colorado-based shop that goes by APR Auto) is sitting on a pallet next to the rig and I'll be throwing it in over the weekend of the 21st with some buddies, I'll definitely share some pictures of the swap.

 

the engine seized never had a problem no noise (bearing knocking) no over heating no smoking !

I have seen over heated engines seize from the temperature !! Timing chain failures those if the chain jams tend to be rather abrupt ! ( not to mention valve damage) Bearing Failure tends to be rather loud before things seize or a rod comes through the block

Even so you would still have a battery drain attempting to crank?? i lean more toward a failed starter solenoid because if that failed to close you would not see a batterydrain

Looking forward to see how this plays out!

Figure the cause of the failure !!

At least your going to have a fresh rebuild! Good Luck!!

 

Aliens

 

Aliens 👽

 

There were some funky splices near the ignition switch from what I can only guess was a previous owners attempt at finding a keyed 12v for an aftermarket accessory, removed the non-stock wires, and cleaned that wiring up, which fixed the electrical issues I was experiencing. Now however when we try to turn the motor over my buddy's ammeter is reading the starter pulling more than 700amps and with the plugs out and 3' breaker bar we can't get the motor to budge an inch.

@wyoming9 You're probably not far off, based on the way it died I suspect the piston/s seized from overheating or the timing chain jammed up. One way or another we're going to find out this weekend -- Thanks for the well wishes hopefully the swap goes nice and smooth