my 22re died. help! mystery problem

toyodaaddict · Jul 17, 2012

iv got a 22re in my 80 toyota and today while driving everything just shut down. it was like someone turned the key off. my cigarette lighter wouldnt even work. the only thing that would work was my headlights. i got a tow home looked everything over again and still no start no nothing. 4 hours later i try it and it fires right up. now i dont trust it to drive anywhere. any ideas what could be going on?

thursday · Jul 17, 2012

check power leads to fuseboxes and grounds would be my first guess. It sounds like a bad connection somewhere.

WA-Wheeler · Jul 18, 2012

Defiantly electrical. TEST or CHECK all connections and grounds....and if its a wheeler CLEAN everything. This should just be a tedious fix. Good luck :awesomework:

zukkev · Jul 18, 2012

Yep, check all main power/grounds connections...does sound alot like an issue at the underhood fuse box though...Also, check where the wire harness goes thru the trans tunnel for the back-up lights--have seen a few 1st gens short to ground thru there, killing the truck intermittantly as the hot wire scrubs the body......come to think of it, that almost always ended up with a blown fuse, But still something to look at.
Another possibility is the ignition switch has a bad connection for one of the accessory circuits...

toyodaaddict · Jul 18, 2012

other than visual inspection is there any way to test for bad conections? with the truck now deciding to run im guessing a test light or volt meter wont work?

zukkev · Jul 18, 2012

A digital volt meter can allow you to check for voltage drops across a given connection/circuit...measure the vehicle total voltage at the battery across the pos/neg terminals with it running, then using the pos lead of the meter on one end of the circuit, and the neg lead at the other end of that wire circuit, you will get the total drop across that circuit...I shoot for less than 300mv (.3V) on the hot side running (ie: batt+ to Alt positive terminal...), and less than 50mv (.05V) on the ground side (ie: batt- to frame...)... Hope that helps...

CHOP SHOP · Jul 18, 2012

toyodaaddict said:
other than visual inspection is there any way to test for bad conections? with the truck now deciding to run im guessing a test light or volt meter wont work?

Theres a tester on the end of your arm. Start wiggling wires and plugs and connections.

Ive never found a bad connection with a meter that I could not find by visual or physical inspection.

zukkev · Jul 18, 2012

CHOP SHOP said:
Ive never found a bad connection with a meter that I could not find by visual or physical inspection.

I have...but then again, I been doing just that for 25yrs...try finding that bad spot when you can't get to the entire harness, and wiggling it from either end (or whereever it disappears) makes no difference....

crash2 · Jul 18, 2012

CHOP SHOP said:
Ive never found a bad connection with a meter that I could not find by visual or physical inspection.

I have. You cannot always see corrosion internal of a wire.

crash2 · Jul 18, 2012

CHOP SHOP said:
Ive never found a bad connection with a meter that I could not find by visual or physical inspection.

I have. You cannot always see corrosion internal of a wire or a broken wire..

toyodaaddict · Jul 31, 2012

well i checked all my grounds. they all looked good, nice and shiny. i also spent 6 hours shaking wires with the truck running and found nothing. iv put 60 miles on the truck since it shut down and its run fine. im at a los for what to do next. im supposed to take a friend wheeling next wednesday and im not feeling very confidant. one thing i dont understand is i dont have a under hood fuse box just my factory fuse block down by the pedals.

WA-Wheeler · Jul 31, 2012

huh?

Ok need more info.....is this a swap job?? exact year of engine etc. etc.

What about your ignition in the column....if you wiggle that does is shut off?

toyodaaddict · Jul 31, 2012

WA-Wheeler said:
huh?

Ok need more info.....is this a swap job?? exact year of engine etc. etc.

What about your ignition in the column....if you wiggle that does is shut off?

my truck is a 80 toyota. engine is a 90 22re. i installed the engine and had someone else do the wireing. the guy that did the wiring has done alot of toyota egine swaps. he spliced the 22re harness into my origanal harness.best i can tell he did a great job. the truck has been running fine and other than this one incident still does. and nope doest shut down when i wiggle the ignition. ignition is what stands out in my mind. it was just like someone turned the key off while driving down the road. no power to anything but the head lights.

jzmudbogger · Jul 31, 2012

I am not sure if you looked at this, but I have ran into issues where people had installed alarms and splice into the wires of the ignition switch and the splice was not that great, which causing it to act like you were turning the key off.

One day I was driving a hardbody pickup I had around town to do some errands which wouldn't start after I got back in it from Fred Meyers. I was trying to figure that thing out for 30 mins, checking for spark and fuel. Then it came to me, when I was reaching into the glove box to get something I must have bumped my kill switch. Flip the switch and it started right up, yeah I felt dumb lol haha.

toyodaaddict · Aug 20, 2012

Now With Burning!

Well, it looks like this little problem is not going away on its own.
I was on the Kaner trail and it happened again. This time, it caught fire as well.
There's a harness of wires that goes from the ignition down the steering column and plugs into a big wire harness under the dash. It was at that plug that things started burning. The half of the plug and wires on the column side are fine the other half is a little melted. There's a black w/red stripe wire and a black w/yellow stripe wire that are cooked.
I wrapped the burnt wires and checked for shorts and cant find any. If I try to start the truck it starts burning and won't run.
I have no clue what to do so I could really use some help. Or if anyone knows where I could take the truck to have it looked at. It's a carbed 20r truck swapped to 22re so that might make this a bit more complicated.

Eric · Aug 20, 2012

You have let the smoke out.

Remove the smoked parts. Replace and do a nice splice.

Check for a short somewhere else. The plug would have the most resistance and it may just be where the smoke was able to escape. The problem might be elsewhere along those wires.

Fix problems.

Start truck. Drive happy.

Mark m. · Aug 20, 2012

Sounds just like mine but without the fire. 81 truck with a 88 22RE swap. Just quit running and will not start again. Let me know if you figure yours out. I'm tired of ****ing with mine.

toyodaaddict · Sep 6, 2012

I think its fixed

allright my truck is up and running again. theres a black w/red stripe wire that i believe is a main power wire. it goes from the pos post on the battery to the ignition. then theres a black w/yell stripe wire that goes from the ignition and at some point connects to the wire that plugged into my old 20r coil (no longer in use).

I pulled apart the harness and found that the wires i just mentioned where all cooked. the old coil wire was cooked to about 3" of the plug that used to plug into my 20r coil and is now pluged to nothing. so the geuss is that the old coil wire shorted.

The wire that runs from the Black w/yell wire to the old 20r coil has been removed and all other cooked wires replaced. the truck is running again.

Now the black w/red wire, a red w/blue wire and the white wire for the alternator are all going strait to the pos post of my battery. this doesnt seem right to me. I asked the guy who wired my 22re and he said those wires had fusable links or fuses from the factory. I would like to fuse them so if i get another short it just blows a fuse rather than possibly burn my whole truck. If anyone has any insight on that lets hear it. Anyway thats what I found out. thanks for all the help guys.

Eric · Sep 6, 2012

toyodaaddict said:
I asked the guy who wired my 22re and he said those wires had fusable links or fuses from the factory. I would like to fuse them so if i get another short it just blows a fuse rather than possibly burn my whole truck. If anyone has any insight on that lets hear it. Anyway thats what I found out. thanks for all the help guys.

Install fuses!!!!!!!! Get a fuse block of some sort, it should be fused. At the very least install some inline fuse holders. Just make sure they are good for the amp draw of those wires, but not too much.

Glad to hear the truck is up and running.

toyodaaddict · Sep 6, 2012

Eric said:
Install fuses!!!!!!!! Get a fuse block of some sort, it should be fused. At the very least install some inline fuse holders. Just make sure they are good for the amp draw of those wires, but not too much.

Glad to hear the truck is up and running.

thats where im at now. tryin to find out what size fuses I need for each wire. but yes fuses seem like an important thing that should not have been over looked