Kinzerhaus

My 96 es300 keeps having weird issues.
It overheated. Found The cause was a bad hose clamp had let fluid slowly leak out
It was recently painted and while at he body shop it had to be jumped twice
Battery is 3 months old
Drove it to store to test drive overheat issue
Started back up and the tachometer and speedometer do not come on at all
Cable ends looked bad so I changed them out for new ones
Car started right up tach and speedo work again
While driving the car about a mile it slowed dramatically and would not run over 800 rpms
The CEL came on while the car was running rough
The car would not move in drive but would back up in reverse like nothing was wrong
Let the car cool down for about 45 minutes (tried starting it several times but ran rough) after it cooled down it sstarted up fine
CEL has now gone back off
Drove about 1/2 mile and CEL came back on and car would not run over 800 rpm again
Let the car cool down overnight
CEL has gone back off on its own
Started the car and let it run in the driveway for about an hour.
Was able to drive the car twice as far as previous night. This was about 3 miles. Car ran fine with no issues
Next day the tachometer quit working again
Shut it off and restarted a few minutes later and tach was fine
Pulled the battery out took it to Wally world to test it. They said the battery was dead and would have to be charged to test it
Battery tests out fine
Before the battery test I tested it at 12.4 volts. After starting car I get 14.4 volts at the battery after running a few minutes this drops to about 13.4 volts.
Anyone have any thoughts? This one is driving me crazy
I am thinking battery, alt, cables or ECU. ECU is proving hard to find or a reman unit no one seems to have one
Thanks

Kinzerhaus

Well I have tested the battery (it is good)
I have tested the Alternator (it is good)
I have tested the positive cable (it is good)
I have replaced the negative cable. It did not test bad but the advice I have been getting locally is that this sounds like a bad ground.
I have a used ECM coming from EBay that I am going to keep in the car. The next time the car starts acting up I am going to swap the ECMs and see what happens

Someone mentioned a sensor on the transmission that could be the source of my won't move in drive but will move just fine in reverse. Anyone know what this sensor is called?

Thanks

GS4_Fiend

iTrader: (22)

Find out what was the code

Kinzerhaus

I have not been able to check the code yet as the 2 times this has happened I did not have a code reader with me. The CEL clears itself when the car sits for a few minutes (like when you are being towed home) the reader finds no stored code at that point. I am now carrying the code reader in the car, but I have to get it to act up again for the CEL to light back up.

Kinzerhaus

Replaced my ECM with a used one from Ebay. It caused a transmission solenoid issue that I didnt have before. So I took some advice from another forum and cleaned the contacts on the original ECM and the plugs and re-installed the original ECM. Drove the car and it died after 13 miles. CEL appeared but code reader found no saved codes. Started it back up and it went about 100 yards. Started it back up again and drove the last 2 miles to work. After work I drove it all the way home with no issues and it died pulling into the driveway. Started thinking this might be a fuel delivery issue. Threw in the towel and took it to the local Toyota dealer. Even though the CEL was not on they were able to pull codes using their interface to the system and determined it was a bad ground connection. Took them 2 hours to figure out which one it was. Told me that when I had work done recently, which they thought might be valve cover gaskets (this was correct) that the ground straps near the rear valve cover were not tightend up and had worked loose. I would say this was the fault of my regular mechanic that did the valve cover gaskets, but these were replaced about 1 to 1-1/2 years ago. So while they may not have been as tight as they should be it is hard to say hey it was your fault when it took this long for a problem to occur.

I am picking the car up today I am going to get them to show me where the grounds are. If I start having weird issues again I will start with those first. I started out thinking this was a ground issue and replaced the battery ground and cleaned the contact points for the couple of grounds I saw on top of the engine I just need to go a little further.

Will post after I drive it a couple of days and let everyone know the result.

Thanks!