Weird engine problems...

So a few months ago I blew a fuse to my alternator and my truck, for obvious reasons, stopped running. Once we got the fuse replaced, the truck ran fine, Now however, this morning on my way to class, the same basic thing happened. The speedometer stopped working, odometer stopped, tachometer, engine temperature meter, gas level indicator then after about 1 minute of those things stopped working, the whole engine shut off. No power steering, no nothing. Now when I tried to make the engine turn over again, all it sounded like was that the battery was dead. My dad jumped me and drove my truck home. He said it was fine on the way home.

Anybody got any ideas of what may be going on/what's wrong?

 

get under there and look for any loose or corroded wires or connections. Its the same problem that blow the fuse the first time, replacing the fuse only got you by till the real issue came up again. Sorry I don't know specificly but sometimes crawling under will reveal an obvious problem.

 

Fuses blow because too much amperage is flowing through them. Too much amperage can be caused by several issues: Corroded contacts/connections, worn appliances, such as fan motors, or cracked or abraided insulation on wires, etc. I didn't catch what year your taco is, but my guess is that you have a poor connection or a wire with cracked insulation that is contacting metal somewhere. When the fuse to your alternator blows it means you have a LOT of amperage flowing through something.

Start with the easiest and cheapest things first: Clean your battery terminals and connectors and reattach. Check your alternator connections and make sure they are tight. Check the ground connection from your negative battery terminal to the frame or engine block (not sure which Toy grounds to right of the top of my head). Look underneath, as suggested by the previous poster and make sure you see no wires that have been pinched or mashed against the frame or something. Make sure all the above connections and wires are insulated against contacting anything they shouldn't. Look for tell-tale black marks and melted insulation, where a wire may have shorted against the frame.

Failing those checks, take it to Toyota and get it checked out. If it were something like a short in your head or tail lights, or radio, or something like that, the fuse for the individual appliance would blow, not the main to the alternator.

If your alternator fuse is blowing intermittently, as you indicated, it suggests to me that you have a connection or bare wire somewhere in your charging system that is contacting metal and shorting. It takes a pretty high amperage to blow that fuse.

 

You might have some sort of a internal short in your alternator itself the 120 amp ALT fuse goes from your battery to your alternator check the wiring and have your alternator checked out.
Which fuse did you replace ?

Wire diagram link

 

If your truck wouldn't fire like the battery was dead but fired when you jumped it then I'd suspect the either the battery is bad or the alternator is bad and not giving a proper charge

 

Almost sounds to me that the voltage regulator in the alt is bad. That would explain why the battery drained itself. But as others have said, you could also have some shorts in there somewhere.