SOLVED! Post 2853 Leaking Injectors, Dealer Techs Rock! Extended Cranking after Engine Swap 3.4L 5vz

At least I'm getting used to this. Not actually all that much of a let down this time, after all the practice I've had at experiencing this. Plus, we are 99% sure we are done chasing it now, which is a relief in itself. Not really sure what EXACTLY that means in the big picture/long term at the moment, but at least we have a few ideas of how we'll proceed from here, and nothing but time to discuss them and see what winds up making the most sense. So in a way, although I am disappointed that it's still doing it, I'm happy overall - to have it back, and to know that it will stay back for the foreseeable future, at least until we decide what our next move is.

So I'm pouring a Buffalo Trace and focusing on the bright side for now. Happy Tuesday evening TW!

 

Well, shit!

 

Amen. But just pour another - that's what I'm doing!

 

Well, that sucks big green donkey dongs. Guess I'll have another, too. Spark, air, fuel. If it ain't spark, gotta be one of the other 2.

 

with a little imagination, any problem can be solved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBehx2D4muA

 

At this point I think you need to take a summer vacation, drive down here to the beach, and let me get a crack at it!

 

Uh oh Bama. Do you realize what you are saying? We might just show up at your doorstep unannounced with broken cookies and a broken truck. And we might just never leave.

JK!

It's funny that you said that though, cuz that thought actually did cross my mind yesterday! But unfortunately we couldn't be further apart geographically, and a long trip in that truck right now makes me very very nervous. Otherwise, we'd be there in a heart beat, and I'd even try my best to deliver NON broken cookies!

 

Laughing my ass off Keakar, good one!!!! You are right, we must count our blessings!!

 

Hell yes on this.

I would. If anything, just to put it to a long term test before letting it go. On the flip side, a awesome road trip to Florida. It will make it, no worries.

 

Yep, I had another one too TenBeers. And another one. And.......... Did you have 10 beers?

I agree, gotta be one of the other two. I swear, the fact that lifting the hood during a time that's normally excessive cranking causes it to start almost normally has got to be some sort of golden clue. That's what I don't get - to me, that seems like a pretty specific symptom, and therefore seems to me it should narrow down the list of possible culprits pretty well.

Although, then I learned about the fun world of how things can fail when hot, but work fine when cold. Which means the hood thing, in conjunction with the failing when hot only theory, narrows down possible culprits to a very small list - everything under the hood.

C'mon TenBeers, what else ya got besides ground wires? You can solve this mystery man, ready, set, GO!

 

True Mod, true. Awesome road trip, with the promise of Bama's expertise = a fabulous idea.

TW, whatdya think? Is it time for us to excessive crank our way across the country and pay Bama a nice long visit?

 

after a while I felt it best to edit out the first stuff so it didn't bring up those bad emotions

but at this point I have to agree with you that maybe it is the engine and not the truck, maybe bad valve adjustment or something

 

Well, not 10. Not on a school night.

Well, you mentioned once that it will start when putting the pedal to the floor. Not sure if that works every time when it is warm. That could mean that it is choking off too much air when it is warm or not giving enough fuel when not touching the pedal and the engine is warm. That is why I was mentioning making sure the throttle butterfly can move freely, and maybe that insulation under the hood was binding something up. I don't think I have a Haynes for that year model to look up how all the vacuum and electronic doodads adjust things for a warm start -- my 2004 only lasted 10 months before a drunk lady hit me and totaled it, so I don't think I bought one. But, something needs to sense that it is warm and adjust the air intake.

Do you start smelling fuel when cranking excessively? Does the truck run well under various conditions once it is started? Any other odd behavior?

 

Aww, you're just teddy bear at heart Keakar!

No worries, I'm actually doing quite well in light of the circumstances. I've seriously become used to this pattern being our new "normal." Barely blinked when we excessive cranked our way out of the parking lot of our favorite restaurant last night (celebratory dinner thinking it *might* be fixed, knowing we'd find out as soon as we left there if it REALLY was).

Guys, not sure if I can do this. I am already formulating a billion ideas of things to test at home, double check with mechanics on, look up in FSM, etc etc etc. Not sure if I can just live with how it is and not fixate on it. But I am sure we cannot keep spending to figure it out. Which leaves our only option being trying to diagnose ourselves at home for free. And the problem with that is I'm not sure if we'll be able to find the right balance between doing some of that, but not spending ALL of our time obsessing over it.

 

The previous mechanic had said it started right up when pedal was held down. But what we experienced was that it didn't. It DID start better under that circumstance, but not 100% normally. It was nearly 100% normal only when the hood was up. We do not smell fuel when cranking excessively. During the little bit of driving we did last night, it seemed to be running fine, and that was a mix of in town stop and go driving as well as some highway driving. Of course, now that I said that, the rough idle will reappear I'm sure!

By the way, that is sad about your '04! Sorry for your misfortune man, that really sucks.

 

My best guess right now is that TSB on the '03-'04's. The one about rerouting a ground wire to fix an excessive cranking problem in certain 03-04 Tacos. Will find and repost that. That's the one that Koditten mentioned a very very long time ago (thanks!). After reading that, I emailed the engine mechanic and asked him if our engine was off of an identical '98 Taco or something else. He replied that they don't keep track of the years of the blocks they use. Which made it seem to me that we could in fact have some/all components of an 03-04 engine in there, and perhaps it has the problem described in that TSB. Right?

EDIT: Here's the links. There were 2 separate TSB's issued related to this problem, both issued in 2004:

Issued Sept 2004: http://www.customtacos.com/tech.old/files/tsb/hard_cranking_tsb.pdf

Issued Dec 2004: http://www.customtacos.com/tech.old/files/tsb/04-EG05204-HardCrank.pdf

I know at least one on sharper tools in the shed felt that there was no chance the 1st bulletin (issued Sept 2004) was our problem. But for lack of a better theory, curious to know what everyone else thinks? And I don't think I ever posted the Dec issued one - to me, that one REALLY sounds like a possibility for us. We did replace the fuel pump and gasket, but not that tube suction thingy.

 

Yeah, I was not happy. I had a '92 base pickup and the A/C went out at 130K miles, so rather than fixing it (it was the old R12 refrigerant, so not a cheap thing to do) I kept it and bought a Matrix for daily driving. But I really wanted to get back to driving a truck. As soon as I heard they were coming out with a new Tacoma, I went and bought a new 2004. I don't like buying the first year model of a new design (learned that with the Matrix), I like to give it 3 years.

The Tacoma wasn't actually totalled, but it was just over $13K of damage. Luckily I never saw it coming and had zero injuries, and there was no frame damage, but I wasn't going to keep that truck. Ended up in a Tundra for a while to let them work out the bugs in the new Tacomas.

It all worked out in the end, and I now have the truck I always wanted.

New Bilstein 5100's going on this weekend!

 

Keakar/everyone, is it possible to have good compression and bad valve adjustment? According to both mechanics who've looked at the Taco after the engine guys, compression is fine. And without taking the entire engine apart (not paying to do that!) we can't be sure of it's quality, but they both think based on compression and the way the truck runs, the engine is OK. Of course, I still question it, considering we are running out of things to question on the truck, plus we have experienced intermittent strange stuff with the idle (too low, too high, rough, etc) since the first time we picked up from the engine guys. Short of replacing/testing the steering wheel and tailgate, we've damn near covered everything BUT the engine.

 

Yes, it is possible.

In my opinion, valve adjustment is more of a fine-tuning thing to eliminate excessive valve train noise, and they would have to be severely out of adjustment to affect warm starting. You would probably have rough idling all of the time, not coming and going, if valve adjustment was part of the issue.

 

Gotcha. Thanks TenBeers!

Don't suppose you had a chance to glance at those TSBs, did ya? The Dec. one says to replace the Fuel Suction Tube Sub-assembly. Huh? Is that part of the replacement fuel pump, or a different part?