2005 Dbl Cab - Temporary Total Electrical Failure

Had a weird problem last night that hopefully someone here will be able to explain. GF and I spent the day out shopping. Drove well over 50 miles. When we got home, I shut the truck off. When I did, the CD changer made some noise like it was shuffling discs, and my ScanGauge went to 'Connecting...'. We both commented that that was odd. I decided to try to start the truck to see if it would do it again. When I turned the key on, I got nothing. No lights, no radio, zip. It was like someone disconnected the battery. Tried the headlights and door locks - nada. No lights when I opened the door. No power to anything. I do have a few lights hooked up to the battery. I decided to try those, and found that they worked fine. So I know I have some juice in the battery. I popped the hood and was looking at the fuses thinking one of the main fuses blew. At this point my GF's dad came out. He commented about the battery post having some corrosion and hit it with my flashlight a few times. We were going to give up at this point when I looked inside the truck and noticed the interior light was on. Got in and the truck started right up. Got in it later on to leave with no problems.

The more I thought about it last night, the more curious I get. All my accessories are hooked up to the same bolt as the main cable to the fuse box. I would think that if the corrosion on the battery post had prevented power to the main cable that my accessories wouldn't have had power either. Second, my Scangauge had displayed 'Connecting...'. That gets power from the ECU, which means that the fuse box had to have been getting power. Is it possible that a total (but temporary) failure of the ECU would cause the truck to have no power?

My only other explanation is that my GF lives out in the middle of the woods, and I swear I've seen some things flying around....

 

Uhm... Far from an expert here but maybe the alternator is about to go tits up?

I'm sure someone with way more knowledge than me will chime in.

 

loose connection to the battery or between the battery and ground

 

I thought about that, but I would have thought if the alternator was failing that the charging system light would have came on. Plus the truck did start up twice after with no hesitation (like a low battery would cause).

Good possibility, but then why would all my accessories turn on? The power cables to those are on the same bolt as the main power cable. All grounds from my accessories are bolted to the same connection the truck uses, on the frame side.

 

Well, doing the obvious would be the easiest. Clean the battery terminals and rings, then see if it does it again. Otherwise, sounds like a bad wire; I haven't seen the Tacoma electrical diagram, but my motorcycle has 1 main 12v power wire that feeds into all the fuses for the rest of the electrical system, but only 2 other wires for accessories that feed off of the battery without fuses (maybe like how nothing worked for you except for your lights that were hooked up to the battery). Maybe there's a connection issue with the wire feeding the fuse box. If the Tacoma is the same (or similar), start from the beginning:
Battery => connections => wire to fuses => connections to fuses => fuses, themselves => wires from fuse boxes to accessories/components => connections to accessories/components => etc.