Help diagnosing intermittent engine stall...

I don't know if I personally would pump fluid out that way. With my luck the trans pump would seize/weld itself all together in a instant. Seems as though you kept a very close eye on things so I hope it works out for you.

 

Yea I was kind of worried about the same thing, but I had my dad watching the fluid pump out, my friend in the truck turning it on/off, and myself pouring in the fresh fluid, so we had it pretty much covered. Lol

 

Figured i'd post an update here... The problem continued after the trans flush, still very intermittent and random. Well this past weekend I took the truck to Vegas and back, a couple engine stumbles here and there but no stalling. Then I got home and took a quick run to the grocery store, came out and the check engine light was on. Code P0120 Throttle position sensor fault. So I guess this whole time it's just been a faulty TPS. I went thru my local dealer yesterday to get a new one for $70 and swapped it out. The truck is running fine, only time will tell if it fixed the problem, but i'm 99.9% sure that was my issue... I should have just replaced the TPS a year ago!

 

be glad you can replace it, on the 01-04 trucks with electronic throttle bodies, the TPS cant be bought as a separate part and is "built-in" to the throttle body so they tell you you need to buy a whole new TB!!!!!!! they don't even have a separate part number for the TPS on my truck

 

its a very safe and most effective way to do a full flush but you need two people so one can slowly pour in fluid at the same rate as it comes out the bottom hose and the other guy can quickly turn off the engine as soon as the fluid coming out starts to bubble indicating its running low, or if doing it by yourself run it for only 5 seconds at a time and add only what amount came out during that time to insure it never runs low on fluid.

the key is to do it at normal idle and your adding as it comes out so its never running the pump dry, plus you start off by overfilling the tranny with 2 extra quarts of fluid as a safety barrier on over draining it during flushing. overfilling the tranny wont hurt it when idling, its only a problem when its turning higher rpms. once all you see is clean fresh fluid coming out you stop adding and shut it off. if your still over full pull off the hose and let it pump out the excess until you are below the full mark, then top of to the correct amount.


the fluid dribbles out under low pressure like a faucet tap barely turned on, its not coming out with any force or pressure behind it. it takes about 5-8 full seconds to pump out 2 quarts of fluid

 

I just started reading the first page and before I saw this post, I was gonna suggest you just go ahead and replace the TPS even if it tested fine just to fully eliminate it as part of the problem. Hopefully its just the TPS then. I also found that using a good amount dielectric grease inside the spark plug boots prevents moisture from building up (can throw a code) and makes it easier to pull the boots off.

 

Yea this is one of the reasons I've been avoiding it, I just assumed mine was one of the ones that couldn't be replaced. But I did a little more research then when it threw the code I said screw it and replaced it. Lol

 

03-04 (somewhere in the Spring is when they changed it). 01-02 still had the separate IAC underneath. The TPS can be removed but as @keakar mentioned there is no individual part number that Toyota will sell, even though it has it's own part number...

also if you pop off the hose to pump out fluid why not use the inbound hose to pull fluid in? or is it only a "pump out" kind of thing and it's the pressure that feeds it back in?

 

its a low pressure system with only a release of fluid under pressure into the line on one side and then it goes through the radiator to cool then dumps back into the pan on the other side so there is no suction side

 

I've flushed probably a hundred transmissions that way (early Mitsubishi Galant with torque converter chatter) and never had a problem. I used to get the drive wheels off the ground and run the trans through the gears once or twice while flushing to make real good and sure all the old fluid got removed.