So I'm looking for some help and suggestions here. Yesterday I was out wheeling with some friends. My truck ran fine all day, and with the exception of some slight heating issues (caused by a radiator caked in mud) it ran fine. I cleaned the radiator as best I could on the trail by gently flushing river water over and through the rad. It never really got too hot, and was shut down well before the point of boiling over.

While airing up, my truck was sitting at normal temps at idle, and suddenly died for what seems like no reason. The truck has fuel, spark, and while the air filter is less than clean it's not clogged. Oil is good. We pulled the maf, battery, and checked fuses before towing it out. It turns over fine, but not even a sputter. Timing belt while due for a change is still in one piece. Truck should be unloaded today, but no idea where to start or any clue why it died so randomly. It ran completely normal with zero issues or indications something was on the way out.

Truck is a 97 SR5 with manual transmission, any ideas where to start?

So no cel codes i guess? Might want to plug in scanner even if no cel lit up on dash. You checked spark at several if not all plugs? Checked fuel pump for operation?

Will it turn over at all or click when you turn the key? Are your dash lights coming on when you turn the key? Was the radiator and motor cool or hot when you poured the water on? And did you only pour water on the radiator or the motor too?

Battery was charged and it cranks fine. We tried many times over the course of towing it out and loading on to the trailer.

Water was poured only over the rad but some splashing would have hit the block. Never poured it over the block though, just trying to flush mud off the rad/condenser. This was probably also 2 hours or so before it died, and never did anything funny up to that point.

While this is out of any of my knowledge or experience, my best guess is a sensor or fuel pressure. We could smell fuel while cranking but that's all we were able to do last night. Timing also came up as a question, I pulled the cover quickly and while I is due for a change it seemed fine and way too tight to hop a tooth.

Even skipping a tooth, it would most likely still start and run.


Could be something as simple as a clogged fuel filter. Need to check fuel pressure to confirm that...

So a very late response and follow up. Thanks to everyone that helped, and apologies for not following up earlier.

Timing belt ended up skipping pretty badly. Had a friend (not sure his forum name here; did drive a silver 3rd gen until it was hit and rolled by a drunk driver, owns a 4th gen now) come over and have a look. He cranked it for about 3 seconds before immediately knowing it was the timing. After getting it ripped apart the right cam was out about 90°. Definitely more than a few teeth. As old as the timing belt was I'm under the impressing the skip was caused largely in part due to mud getting back there. My crank gear was so caked it barely had teeth on it, apart from the new ones my belt had made in the mud. Before I had the lower cover I reached down there to touch it and knocked off a mud "tooth", thinking the gear had somehow dicisntigrated.

Replaced the belt, water pump, t Stat and a couple idlers. All seals were nice and dry so I didn't touch them. Took a few hours to get properly cleaned, the mud was so packed on to the gears it was damn near as hard as the metal. One of the bolts for the tensioner broke, that was a nightmare to drill out but managed to get it. 400,000kms on the truck, and runs like new. I'll see if I can't post the very few pictures I took of it. Big thanks to the guides on replacing the timing belt, they made it pretty fool proof.