HELP!! 87 Camry still stalling

[Iansride]

I'm hoping a Toyota guru can help me out. I have a 87 Camry 4cyl auto with 130K. It has a new timing belt and distributor as well.

It ran fantastic for over a year after purchasing, but for the last few months I've been fighting an intermittent stalling issue.

From research here, I've tried the following;
Replaced cap, rotor, wires & plugs - no help
Replaced Coil - no help
Wired in the starter relay by pass - no help.

I'm moving from a house to a condo soon, and need to get it corrected. Plus, its dangerous to drive as it will stall at any speed or time. 90% of the time it will start again immediately, but there is a good 10% when you have to wait for 5 minutes or more.

Unfortunately I don't have any way to run codes, and I'm not very good with an ohm meter either.

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to your answers.

[Mike Gerber]

First of all your car is OBD1. That means you can read the codes without any equipment other than a piece of wire or a paper clip. Check any manual for the procedure. If you don't have a manual available, you can download one for free over at the Camry forum at AutomotiveForums.com. The manuals are stickied at the top of that forum. Download the generation 2 manual.

Second, I suggest you clean your throttle body, paying particular attention to spraying the cleaner liberally down in to the hole at the base of the throttle body. That hole leads to the idle air control valve, where your stalling problem may lie. Then go on to clean the rest of the throtlle body while the cleaner soaks in to the idle air control valve. Here's a thread on how to do it on a generation 4 5SFE engine. Your generation 2 3SFE engine will be pretty much the same.

How to: Cleaning Throttle Body -4 Cylinder Engines- With Pictures

Mike

[Iansride]

Mike,

Thanks for the info. I should've thought to do this myself. I do have a toyota service manual, so I'll give the TB cleaning a try. If that doesn't fix it, I'll run the codes and let you know what I find.

[white90dx]

It sounds like your ignitor might be going bad, or possibly the wiring to it. It should be bolted to the battery tray near the transmission dipstick.

Definitely check the codes - if the ignitor is going bad, the ECU will know about it.

-Charlie

[Iansride]

I wanted to give a BIG thanks to Mike G. for the suggestion of cleaning the throttle body & IAC areas. I cleaned these areas up on Friday afternoon, and it seems to have fixed the problem.

When I first started the car it did smoke - but not nearly as much as I expected. I ran it at about 2500 rpm for 5 mins or so, and it cleared right up.
The check engine light came on briefly a couple of times, but went back out.
I immediately went for a test drive and the car ran very well, no sputtering / missing / or most importantly it didn't stall out. I did get the check engine light twice for a few seconds, but it went back off.

I drove the car again yesterday evening, and it ran great with no check engine light appearances. I'm guessing the previous check engine light situations were due to the cleaner working it's way through the IAC.

Hopefully this is the end of the stalling issue. I'll check back in with another update to let you know how its going.

Thanks again for the support of a great on-line community.