2002 won't start up

Subbed for Final cause. Good Luck!

 

From what I've read on other sites, there is a remove-able inspection cover for the flex plate.
If you can locate/remove it, it may answer some questions.

 

Sounds like a bad starter to me...flexplate just seems unlikely to break without some other catastrophic failure that you would notice. If it cant even turn the engine and your battery volts are good, I'd start with the starter.

 

There's a gynormous hole in your thought process. How would a bad starter cause his vehicle to lose power, cause a shuttering feeling and then fail to start afterward? The flex plates on 1st Gen Tacomas and 3rd Gen 4runners are known to fail. You just haven't ever heard of it. The OP did say he heard the tell-tale signs of a cracked flex plate before he had the complete failure. Once he pulls the access plate off the bottom of the bell housing, he'll know if it is a flex plate failure because it will be obvious.

 

Could have sworn I said the exact thing on post #13. Weird. Maybe it's just deja vu.

 

I guess if it is common it could be it...that type of failure would be aggravating...I know if it is a part it can fail but when I think of failures I dont think of flexplate as the first thing to fail.

 

Torque converter split?

 

sounds like a possible stripped flex plate.
Tho' I'm not sure what may have caused that.

Possibly the motor is locked up and the starter stripped the engagement gears ?
The engine can be checked by pulling the spark plugs and turning it over manually at the front crank wheel.

Does the engine turn over when turning it manually ?

 

if/when the flexplate went south it should have made a horrendous sound. once broken all the way around from the mounting bolts, the torque converter quits spinning, thus the loss of power to da wheels...crank connected to flexplate, flexplate connected to torque converter, torque converter connected to transmission, transmission connected to driveshaft, ect...any part that fails in that chain equals no power to rear wheels..I doubt it was the timing belt as you stated the engine kinda ran after the problem...

most likely scenario....

if the engine puked, there would have been a terrible noise too...

 

should be able to get a socket/wrench on the crank/balancer bolt and turn it

 

thats what I was thinking...could be two different problems...one causing a shudder such as a fuel pump going out and the other being the starter going bad. But I guess flexplate isnt out of the relm of possibilities either.

 

Sounds like the tbelt is toast and it's just free wheeling with the starter, you said all the timing marks were lined up? Did you try turning the engine over by hand? Did the tbelt rotate when you did?

 

Well, opened the inspection cover and I was greeted with this....


So plus one for the flexplate crowd! Thanks guys. Just have to replace it now.....

 

Thanks for the update. So many never return to finish the story.............

Your next challenge is to see if there are any determining factors of the failure, other than just fatigue. Looking for some of those possibilities could be a bit tricky.

@gearcruncher has a list of potential issues that could come to play. I'll see if I can find the thread they were in.

Edit: Here you go. Post 5. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/flexplate-keeps-cracking-02-tacoma.482926/

 

I won.
I had the flexplate breaking 3 times within in a period of 3 months with my rodeo. Nobody could find the reason. I finally gave up and sold the car .
There's a thread here where some guy is having the same problem with his taco. Not sure if he was able to find the reason the flexplate keeps cracking.

 

Well the truck has 230k on it right now, and I started to hear the tick around 225k. So it might just be fatigue.... I hope.

 

It cant be the flex plate if theres barely any of it left...right

 

Men...they are expensive.

 

Flex plates cost around $250 from an online parts seller like Camelback Toyota. I recently helped my buddy Sean replace his auto trans and we videoed the whole thing but it's not edited yet. I wish I had it ready so I could hook you up with video.