91 Camry stalls after raining

[Menocar]

Greetings. I'm new to this forum and I hope someon ecan steer me to a previous thread or give me a solution. Here goes. I own a 1991 Toyta Camry DX, 4-door with 4-Cylinder, automatic, air that has either of the next 2 scenarios occur after a soaking rain. Upon raining for several hours the car will either:

A.) Start, run pretty much ok until shortly after warming up it will begin to buck and upon stopping and attempting to accelerate, stall out. You usually have to crank and crank and step on the gas to get it lit. Whereupon it stubles and misses and has no power and continues to stall each time it is placed in gear and the throttle depressed. Usually I can get the RPMs up enough, in neutral, to then slam it in gear and pull out and it will go. Eventually this buckiing, stalling behavior stops, usually in about 5 to 10 miles.

B.) Will be hard to start from the beginning and the everything that happens in A.) happens here. In other words in A.) I get out of my driveway for a little distance before it happens and here, in B.) I don't.

A few months ago when this first started I was told to replace the engine temp sensor and that appeared to fix it. But since it started happening again I ran a resistance test on the sensor and it came up normal. No engine check light or other displays of problems appears. I'm tired of checking and checking and not getting anywhere. Does anyone have ideas before I set fire to this thing?! :-)

[sketchmobile]

I'm currently troubleshooting the same problem, about to go check the coil for signs of the burn mark, as mentioned in this thread: problem starting and keeps stalling in wet weather

Hope this helps. I would also say "welcome", but I've been here for about thirty seconds myself.

[Menocar]

Thanks. After I posted this I saw the same article but haven;t had the time to run the diagnostics on the coil. Please let me know what your results are. I may just replace the coil than test it. I'm sick of being under the hood.

[sketchmobile]

I checked mine, and it does have that characteristic burn mark. All you have to do to look for that is take the intake hose (for ease), cap and rotor off, about 15 minutes really.

I also checked primary and secondary resistances according to the manual, and they were in the specified range although at the far high end. Then again, the car was running normally yesterday so I wouldn't necessarily expect it to measure a faulty resistance even if the coil is the problem. I'll be replacing it. Should be here in a week or so.

[Menocar]

Hey, I went ahead and changed the coil. It hasn't rained here since so the jury is out. And if you go to do it you HAVE to remove the distributor to replace the coil (Unlike my older Hondas).

[toyotaerick]

I just saw this posting. I have the exact same car as you and the exact same problem when it is raining and even sometimes when it not (just not as bad). I have replaced plugs, wires, cap and rotor and taken it into the shop. Nothing works. Now it is raining again and the problem is back with a vengence. Did it work replacing the coil and how mush does it cost?

[sketchmobile]

Yep, replacing the coil worked beautifully. Part cost is 20-50 bucks depending where you get it from and what brand. If you're careful about marking distributor components while removing them you won't have to reset the timing or anything. Took me about 2 hours total, and a half hr of that was because I had to use a stud extractor on one of the tiny phillips head screws holding the coil into the distributor itself. Not a very hard job, barring issues like that.

Of course, the reason I'm back to this forum is that the car quit on the highway this afternoon. It's got spark though, so the coil is still going strong

[toyotaerick]

Thanks for the info. I replaced the coil also and have had no problems whatsoever, it even rained.

[Chris Tacoma]

Glad everything worked out for everyone