Hello everyone, Im looking for some help diagnosing an issue with my 1984 4runner with a 22r. I was driving today for about 10 minutes and it was running perfectly fine, then, while stopped at a stop light, my engine died while in neutral. I tried a few times to start it to no avail. I then had someone help me push it to the side of the road, and still couldnt get it started.

The engine cranks just fine, lights and radio still work, so its not an electrical issue. It seems to me like the 22r isnt getting any fuel, but thats just my initial assumption. If someone has any ideas on what would cause it to abruptly die at idle, and then not start, any help would be greatly appreciated!

My initial thought is the fuel pump relay.

It's likely fuel pump related or a clogged pilot jet,etc... It's possible it's a fuel pump relay failure (as someone above pointed out) or could be the MAF sensor went south on you.

I've seen my fair share of troubleshooting fuel issues with 80s vehicles i've owned over the years when 'rolling pennies for gas' broke and couldn't afford to take to a mechanic. Ever try keeping a 1982 Camaro 2.8 V6 MFI 3rd Generation on the road?

Good luck!

so is this problem solved? no update?

air, fuel, spark.

make certain your fuel system is venting, pull gas cap. Check all your fuel lines, see you have pressure. coil wire, distributor. got spark?
id be looking at fuel filter first, cuz its cheapest. clogged fuel line or jett will do it. then fuel pump/reg. Is it pumping, can you hear it?

It's a 22R, so has a mechanical fuel pump.

Pull the air cleaner cover and try to start (be sure to pump the gas a lot) and see if you can smell gas being pumped into the carb throat.

Actually, you should be able to see a stream of gas shoot in when you manually work the the throttle linkage.

I agree. Easy enough to check, pull the air cleaner and see if there's any fuel in the sight glass. Even if it's just low, most likely it's the fuel pump, unless you've never changed the fuel filter....

Thank you for the correction and education!

Hey sorry everyone, ended up having to leave home where my car is for a bit and then got caught up in finals so didnt spend any time working on it but now its time to figure it out.

So I was able to get it started again, it was idling very poorly (almost sounded like it had a lope tune), and then it would fully die as the engine stars to get warm. I think thats why when it first happened and I was stranded in a parking lot, after coming back to the car 3 hours later I was able to get it started.

I am planning on looking at fuel filter, fuel pump relay, distributer cap, and MAF. Before I start looking this afternoon, does the fact that it starts when cold, idles rough for a few minutes, and then dies (and wont start again for a while, until engine cools down I presume) rule out any of those options?

Forgot to add, there is a strong smell of gas when it does die than lingers around the car for a bit, so does that rule out faulty fuel pump? Its a very strong smell of gas that you would notice just walking by the car. Maybe the carb gets flooded and thats why it idles rough and eventually shuts off after a few mins and then wont start?

After starting the car yesterday, I noticed a large amount of fuel leaking out of the fuel pump (in front of gas tank on driver side of car). It was continuously filling the fuel pump and leaking fuel resulting in a looot of fuel on the ground. I opened the gas tank to relieve pressure and it stopped. I have had laking there before from the fuel hose corroding and splitting, so I cut off the split section and reattached the hose to fuel filter. I will replace fuel filter tomorrow. If the hose is splitting on the fuel filter connection again, is there any harm in just cutting off the split section and reattaching hose (I have about 7 inches of slack in the hose to work with so should be able to do that a few more times), or should I just replace the hose. If I should replace the whole hose, is it a 5/16 hose?

Quite often, the hardlines exiting from the top of the tank crack or break. Since the tank pressurizes with the fuel return from the carb, if the truck runs for a few minutes, ie: warms up, there can be fuel coming from a crack in one of the hardlines. Also, the fuel lines connecting to the hardlines can get old and brittle, and again, as the tank pressurizes, fuel comes from the fuel lines. Also, as they get old, they can push off the hardlines, especially if someone pulled them off, and didn't put the hose clamps back on, or put them back on incorrectly.

Good Luck, and keep us updated.
Pat☺

I learned with a 92 3000gt that problems once warmed up often have to do with the sensors and their readings. In that car, part of the air handling past the MAF had popped off when I downshifted getting off the freeway. When cold, it ran ok. Once warmed up, in that case about 7 minutes, it started running rough and blowing smoke. I tested and replaced a bunch of things, but in the end it was just one of the connections on the air handling on this twin turbo engine.

And a trick to be in limp-home mode is to disconnect the MAF. With that unplugged, the computer will stop looking at the sensors. It might be non-ideal or lower powered, but could help.

That may or may not help you, with an older 4runner. But it has a MAF, so it must be doing something with some of the sensor data, and it seems to happen only in that warmed up state. I believe once you hit the problem, you could unplug the MAF and see if it changes, and that would tell you if it's sensor related or something like the fuel coming up to pressure. You could probably unplug it while it's running, but if you are able to restart it I'd personally turn it off and then unplug. But on that 3000gt, even the pulling spark plug wires while it was running worried me.

Good luck.