Sand in the tank, headlights, or electrical issues, the saga continues for the 4th time? (10/9/18)

Sounds like it went into limp mode, literally. My 2nd gen Tundra would do that when the air pump code would pop up. No power, no throttle response. By the way, it was water in the air injection pump for emissions. Related? Wave may have got water in the air injection pump.

 

Likely something got wet (something electronic) and driving it around generated enough heat to cook the moisture out of whatever sensor got wet.

 

I´m glad to see its working now and I can see your frustration, but this comment kinda stunned me.
Yes, its an Off Road Truck, that doesn´t mean you can take it swimming with you. A few mud holes will be nothing to worry about.

 

Well, you do see people doing river crossings in these things. Something, some part may not be well sealed. I'd pull the codes and start there.

 

Wow, sorry for your bad luck. This makes me want to keep my 2nd Gen forever...

 

I appreciate all the help and especially appreciate HalfwayThere 's willingness to hell a fellow taco member.

As for the swimming comments, it's was a wave, no more than 8-12 inches deep. I wasn't driving in the surf on purpose or anything.

There's an area of Pismo that is a lot softer than the rest of the beach and the truck I pulled out had broken 4x4. The one had his family and young kids with him so I wasn't going to leave him. I pulled them down towards the harder wet sand, but since I was the one pulling him down, I got wet.

The truck is now running good, I'll check again today. As far as the dunes go I'm renting a RZR 800 to go play...

The truck did Amazing in the sand. Really phenomenal... The water concerned me lol

 

Glad your back up and running, but for the sake of closure what did you do?

 

So I just got home and hit the truck with the pressure washer.. I sprayed the underneath and everything and it did the same thing as last night. I slapped the code reader and got these

P0123
P2135
P0204
P0205
P0201
P0206
P0191


Basically the injector harness isn't water tight, and the TPS sensor isnt water tight.

So... If a carwash put us into limp mode, a wave/puddle/any amount of water is going to make this thing surge badly.

Upon further research from Lexus cars, the computer shuts off TRAC hence the TRAC light being on due to the faults.


I suspect if we seal up of dielectric grease these things we should be OK....

 

Hope this is a one off, thats a shitload of throws....

 

I wrote to Toyota with my findings.

The plugs on the fuel rail and the TPS aren't overly impressive. They have the little rubber grommets that you can push and pull out with easy, exposing the terminals inside.

Also, something is ridiculously sharp in the fuel rail area. I didn't even feel it, but a large chunk of skin is now missing from my finger, I only noticed the blood...

The truck performs remarkably in the sand and trails, and the locker made recovering stuck vehicles, including a Dodge 2500 Cummins on 35s and a Ford expedition full of people (all 3 rows) very easy.

But water, from a carwash or a wave, regardless, should NOT render a truck marketed to the Off Road community useless.


I left it run for a while and cleared codes, the TPS codes are gone, but the injector codes remain and it still sputters pops and misses bad. I shut it off for fear of damaging or frying the electrical system...

 

There's been other members on here that have had water up to the wheel wells and they haven't had problems so I doubt a car wash is going to make our truck useless. I believe the member was @Z50king and he didn't have any problems and the truck did great.

 

Then my truck has an issue.

I did some water crossings, and even a stream crossing at speed (it's a paved wash) and had no issues. But this wave, which was more shallow than the stream and a carwash have shut me down....if it was just one injector or just the TPS I'd say there's a wiring issue or a rubbed wore, loose connector etc.

But to throw all those codes (12 in all, but it was repeating the injector codes) leads me to believe something else is up.

 

I'm wondering if I just spray WD40 on everything... Lol

 

I wouldn't, i would try dialetrec grease first.

 

To get to the plugs I'd have to remove the fuel rail and intake.

 

I've been through a few wheel-hub-high crossings, some at speed, and never had an issue. I've also been through several different car washes without problems.

Salt water may have more of an effect on something that is marginally protected.

 

*I'm no expert* Looking at the codes on a generic list, you have a mish-mash of stuff going on.

The first two are throttle position sensor and throttle pedal position sensor.

My (uneducated!) guess is that the throttle position sensor went wonky first (water in the engine bay). That caused a miss-match between the throttle position and the pedal position (second fault). At that point, the engine control shut down fuel pressure so you wouldn't die from unintended acceleration due to loss of proper feedback and control of the throttle position. Loss of pressure caused your other injection related faults.

I would find that throttle position sensor and see if it has a loose connection or is otherwise compromised. I'm not sure if the related wires have any other connectors on their way to the ECU, but that would also be something to check.

As an example of how something unrelated can cause other codes to be set, when I had my SnugTop installed, they blew the brake fuse. The truck wouldn't start because it couldn't sense the brake pedal being pressed. Once we replaced the fuse, I had a P0087 code: Fuel Rail Pressure Too Low. I reset the code and it never came back. So apparently, a SnugTop can drop your fuel pressure! Who knew?
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/an-eventful-snugtop-installation.407183/

I think the fact you could repeat the issue with pressure washer reasonably eliminates random failure or failure induced from bouncing around on the beach. So that's something.

 

Definitely.

The funny thing is that the TPS plug and such was completly dry on the inside. It's easy to get to.

But the TPS itself was making a loud humming noise, the actual motor for the butterfly valve.

The electronics of this truck are exceeding my knowledge of vehicles. I can build engines with normal efi systems, but this is a ton of wires and injectors lol

 

Well update, after a lot of idle time and then dry time, the truck is still limping badly and surging, can't even keep it running now.

 

P0088
P0171
P0174
P0191
and a random assortment of the injector codes keep appearing.