Help! Truck is running like crap!

Well, my buddy came by, and his scanner gave me a Cylinder 1 misfire! So we took a look at the plugs....(which were all Denso), and found them to be in pretty poor condition!

What do you guys think??? HA HA!

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I'm gonna call around tomorrow, and see where I can get some NGK plugs and wires for a decent price.....

Thanks again for all the advice!
 
New plugs for sure. I know everything in Canada is more expensive, but I'd some some pennies for some wires. Get some dielectric grease as well.

How is your PCV valve looking these days? Burn any oil? It looks as if you have a good bit of oil residue around the electrode of that one plug.
 
by the looks of the plugs you may have a light oil leak into the plug tubes, which could mean the valve cover and plug tube seals need to be replaced...
but remember to change your wires and your coil boots... the boots dont ussually come with the plugs
 
HaYnrunner said:
by the looks of the plugs you may have a light oil leak into the plug tubes, which could mean the valve cover and plug tube seals need to be replaced...
but remember to change your wires and your coil boots... the boots dont ussually come with the plugs
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was going to suggest, took the words right out of my mouth!!!
 
I'm not 100% sure, but the oil residue is most likely due to the valve cover leak I have. Both are seeping oil, but not a fast rate. Actually, it's barely noticeable from one oil change to the other.

The one thing to consider is, those plugs are 13 years old, so they are going to have some gunk on them.

If it solves my problem, I'm happy. I know I should fix the valve cover leak, but with winter in full swing, temperatures are dropping, and I don't have a heated garage. I'll most likely do it in the spring, when it's warmer out there.
 
The leaking valve cover tube seals then explain where the oil is coming from.

Cold hands on colder manifold pieces is not fun at all but rather a major PITA.

My original driver side Japanese installed plugs were single electrode Densos, not dual, but maybe it was different for the 98s and prior. I will be crossing my fingers that this is the remedy for ya.
 
TheDurk said:
Flashing CEL means a bad misfire, as in cat-damaging level of bad. You really need the codes to see if specific cylinders are misfiring, or if it is random. Then you can start swapping coil packs and other things to start diagnosing this. Otherwise this thread is a waste of time.
Click to expand...

Alright, so it wasn't the plugs and wires........so Coil packs maybe??? The CEL indicated Misfire Cylinder 1.....which pack goes to Cylinder 1???

I'm already out $150.00....taking a blind guess and buying a bunch of parts, isn't something I can afford.....

Thanks again in advance for your help guys!
 
Cyl one is the front cyl on the passenger side and has the coil pack directly above it. What I did to find mine was swap two coil packs and then read again after the CEL goes off. if it stays on Cyl #1 then it is not a coil pack and likely an Injector or head gasket type issue.
 
Thanks Pikeman for the response! I was actually going to go do that, but then decided to take my buddy for a cruise with the truck, so he could see the symptoms I was talking about. Looks like I might have been premature in my last post! I took it back out for a ride, and it seems to have stopped! Looks like the residual oil left in the spark plug tube, needed to get burned off.....because now it's running smooth, and the CEL didn't come back on! :)

I'm going to take it to work again tomorrow, and see how she does, but so far.....looks like it was the plugs and wires! :)

I'll keep you guys posted!
 
TheDurk said:
Not always. Bad injectors or other fuel starvation, sludge messing up the valves or other compression issue are possibilities. It's always spark/timing, fuel, air/compression.
Click to expand...

Ok...so Seafoam didn't work! Looking at this comment...how likely is it that it's an Injector?? How common is the sludge/valve or compression issue??

The truck runs well intermittently, and only seems to act up on mild days. Also, the Seafoom seemed to have solved the problem the same day...but a day and a half later....the it came back......

I'm really hoping you guys can give me some insight here, as I'm about to just take it to the dealer and get ready for an a$$-rape..... :(
 
Hey man, funny enough i am experiencing the same thing right now with my 96 t4r. she started running really poorly one day and had a loss of power. so i started at the top and changed the coil pack on cylinder 4. (my CEL told me a code p304 which was a misfire on cylinder 4) so far ive changed the plug, wire and the coil pack to no avail, so my best guess is a bad injector, but my engine seems like its making a slight ticking noise, which idk maybe is a bad valve? one of the guys on here told me to try a compression test as well, just to rule out any major problems, but let me know how its going with ur truck, ill keep you updated on mine. Im kinda frustrated because i just bought mine 8 months ago, and it only has 81k on it! but anywho good luck and keep me updated
 
Ticking usually comes from the injector when it is going south, at least it did on my mom's Camry. On some vehicles, the injectors have a constant, slightly audible tick to them.

Fightman, no, the valve covers and the bad gas/clogged injector are independent problems.
 
Well, to be completely honest...I'm drunk right now! HA HA! My neighbour offered to give me a hand to diagnose the truck tonight, and I think we might have figured out what is going on! (we were sober then...lol)

Looks like cylinder 5 coil boot is FUBAR! It actually crumbled was we started to handle it, and the interior metal piece is non existant! Aside from that, we're planning on putting some Seafoam through the vacuum lines, and hopefully that will clear out any issues I have going on with this rig....

I'm gonna pick up the parts tomorrow, and do the job on Sunday....

Thanks for all the replies, and I'll keep you all posted with what happens!
 
Alright, so we put a brand new coil in Cylinder 5 (the boot was crumbling and nobody sells the boot without the coil :AK47:) AFter that, I put half a can of Seafoam through the EGR Vacuum line, and blew out some smoke. After all was said and done....the truck still ran like crap!

So, next order of business was the injectors. After checking the code again, and it saying it was cylinder 1 misfire, we decided to test the cylinder 1 injector. 1st we tried disconnecting it while the truck was running.....NOTHING! No change in idle, and the truck was running the same....like crap. We then disconnected Cylinder 3's injector...BAMMO! The truck started running even worse!

So, now we know for sure it's the injector in Cylinder 1. But is it clogged, or is it Electrical?? We took a multimeter to it, to check the ohms (13.8 stock), but it was showing NO resistance! So now I know it's not clogged.....it's most likely Electrical, and I might as well replace it.

So, I call the local parts store, they'd have to order a remanufactured one for $192.00 plus TAX! I found a sale on E-bay for 6 Injectors for the same price as the 1 from the part store, so I'm gonna most likely order them!

First things first, I need to know if the T100 and the 4Runner have the same injectors, if they are both 3.4l engines???

I've posted a thread about this already, so answer here or there, no matter...I'm gonna keep checking in so I can order them ASAP.

Thanks!
 
Fightman,

As long as your 98 was built before July of that year, you should be OK. The 99s and later use a different injector.

The OEM part # is 23209-62030 if you want to cross reference it at the dealership.

Take some pics of the install for us. Good luck.
 
doesnt matter dude new injector old injector they all work!!!!!! i have 2 of the new injectors in my engine and 4 old ones, same flow rate fits right in. 2 new brown ones are from a 2004 tacoma and 4 silver ones are stock.
 
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