Bad miss

[bandit1250]

My old Tundra V-6 developed a very bad miss last week. It got to where I couldn't drive it deer hunting without thinking it may leave me stranded and I did not want to take my Corolla and try to haul a deer in the trunk of it. The Corolla is to nice to treat it that way. My truck has just shy of 200,000 on it now and only had one set of plugs and wires ever changed on it. The last plug change was 80,000 miles ago and it had a miss when pulling mountains or hauling a load. Turned out to be a plug wire boot firing down the side of the plug. It had little black tracks on the side of the plug showing the misfire. So I went and got new plugs and a new set of wires. It only comes with three plug wires because three coils fire 6 cylinders and the coils mount on the valve cover so I also bought the three coil boots that didn't get replaced last time. Those boots are almost 6" long making the plugs set way down in the cylinder head in the center of the valve cover like the old Hemi Head Chrysler engine cars I had when in high school. Took about an hour to get it done. Went for a ride and only went about half dozen car lengths and told my SIL "it's fixed." He asked how could I know. I told him if it wasn't it would already be miss firing. Feels good to have the old Tundra running on six instead of four. This vehicle is not as cluttered up in the engine bay like new vehicles are. Remove the air intake hose from the air box and the throttle plate intake and a bracket or two and everything is easy to get to.

[Hatchdog]

Nice! Sure is a relief to find an inexpensive fix for a potential expensive problem. If the rest of your Tundra looks as nice as your engine compartment I can appreciate why you want to keep it around.

[bandit1250]

Nice! Sure is a relief to find an inexpensive fix for a potential expensive problem. If the rest of your Tundra looks as nice as your engine compartment I can appreciate why you want to keep it around.

I take pride in clean engine bays on my vehicles. Can't stand to touch something and get grease on my fingers. For being 18 years old and seen winter driving since new it has no rust any where and still gets a lot of good comments.

Engine bay on my Chrysler. 36 years old with 149,000 plus miles.



My Chrysler. 1985 Fifth Ave. All factory paint and interior

My Corolla engine compartment. 75,000 miles

[rugrat]

Good to hear it was a fairly easy fix.

[Ernie]

Nice fix. I love it when I can actually repair something fast and easy. Doesn't happen all that often. Congratulations

[John E Davies]

Older trucks are easy to work on. I keep my engine bays looking like yours. Maybe you should remind yourself to proactively change old worn parts before they fail....and it is certainly a very bad idea to continue driving it that way, the unburned fuel will screw up your O2 sensors, and carbon the cylinder heads.

Have you ever changed the timing belt? It should be done, along with the water pump and pulleys, every 90,000 or seven years. Your 3.4 liter engine is non-interference, meaning the valves will not be destroyed if it snaps, unlike the 4.7 V8, but it will still leave you stuck in the boonies and swearing non-stop.... or blocking traffic on a busy freeway. I just changed the belt on my daughter’s 2007 Outback XT, it only has 95,000 miles on it and the belt looked fine, but one of the pulley bearings was dry and rough and would have failed quite soon. Hers is an interference engine, so a failed belt means pulling the engine and rebuilding the top end at least, or an exchange engine. Timing belts are definitely “pay me now or pay me a lot more later”.

John Davies
Spokane WA

[markiver54]

Cannot say enough good about the 3.4 ltr engine. We have them in our 4-Runners and they have been great.
Can't say much for gas milage though...oh well.

[Sir Henry]

I had a 1991 with the 22RE engine that was bulletproof.

[markiver54]

I had a 1991 with the 22RE engine that was bulletproof.

Yup, had a '86 4-Runner with the 22RE. Also great engines. Mine had 290K on it when I sold it, and was still going strong.

[JEBar]

great to hear the fix was a simple one ... hopefully she's ready for another couple of hundred thousand

[BigAl52]

I do the same with mine. My 2006 Dodge Dually is clean as a pin underneath the hood. Glad you got her going again Bandit.

[dave77]

Cannot say enough good about the 3.4 ltr engine. We have them in our 4-Runners and they have been great.
Can't say much for gas milage though...oh well.

I have a 4L, v6 in my 97 Ranger and it also gets terrible mpg. I was curious about if it had a timing belt or chain (it has a chain) and saw that my 97 4l engine has 160hp, the 2020 Ranger has a 2.3L 4 Cy. Turbo that has 270hp and much better mpg.

My 97 is paid for and I only drive it when I need more room than the Miata has or there's snow or fresh de-icer on the roads but I'd consider a new Ranger if I was in the market for a new truck.

[dave77]

I can't say my engine bays are always this clean but here's a photo of my 06 Miata's after a recent detailing. It has no leaks at all but it does tend to get dusty.

[bandit1250]

I can't say my engine bays are always this clean but here's a photo of my 06 Miata's after a recent detailing. It has no leaks at all but it does tend to get dusty.

Looks great. That's the way I like them. They all gather dust but keeping it in check makes the job a lot easier than letting them out of control. I would like to have a nice Miata.

[bandit1250]

Cannot say enough good about the 3.4 ltr engine. We have them in our 4-Runners and they have been great.
Can't say much for gas milage though...oh well.

My 3.4 Tundra being a two wheel drive and manual 5 speed gets 20.0 to 21.5 MPG local before the engine miss started. It was sucking up some gas with the miss in it. On several trips to Florida we could get it up to 24 mpg on the highway but that was about it. It has a 4.08 ratio rear so it is humming pretty good at 80= MPH on I-95 even with the 5 speed. With only a little over a 200 cubic inch engine and older technology it is a wonder it can pull a full size truck like it does and get decent mileage.

[dave77]

I can't say my engine bays are always this clean but here's a photo of my 06 Miata's after a recent detailing. It has no leaks at all but it does tend to get dusty.

Looks great. That's the way I like them. They all gather dust but keeping it in check makes the job a lot easier than letting them out of control. I would like to have a nice Miata.

I love mine. It's a NC or 3rd generation, bought it new in 06. It now has about 60k miles on it. Since retiring it doesn't get a lot of miles on it, maybe 5k or less a year so I'm thinking it will probably outlast me. Hasn't really needed anything other than routine maintenance although I have done some mods to it like suspension upgrades, some interior stuff, led lights, etc.

If you do ever get serious about finding one I would recommend trying to find one with a canvas top, requires a little more maintenance than vinyl but they hold up better, the PRHT models (power retractable hard top) seem to be pretty robust but weren't available when I bought mine.