I have 92 Toyota tercel got before winter and did timing belt rotor wires cap gaskets gas tank pcv air filter and intake manifold pressure sensor from junk yard old one was missing... ran well but always rich and ruff Idle. now summer is here and it runs like crap rich smell, poor idle, misses on acceleration, cold or warm yet really bad until it warms up... so starting simple and going from there.

today checked battery and alt voltage both strong;cleaned up electrical connectors found that #2 wire has very little spark when you hook up a inductive timing light to the wire;tested primary and secondary coil in distributor found that coil has 1tenth to high resistance in ohms read 0.7 on primary Haynes says spec is 0.4 to 0.6 replace? cap and rotor still look clean. shot starting fluid at all vacuum lines and intake points showed no noticeable leaks rpm never raced well spraying.

in process of changing fuel filter had to pull entire line lower banjo would not budge don't think this will help but starting simple going to pull codes, put new wires and recheck plugs for gap.recheck ignition timing. tech from Toyota suggested idle air valve (auxiliary air valve) or cold start injector and relay going to test and pull throttle body clean up and reinstall. check injectors with screw driver(stethoscope). any one know about TPS removal cleaning and reinstall? read through some other threads once running going to try to shot seafoam into intake system per directions on can. Also suspect cat converter because muffler has loose metal inside thought it was chunks of honey comb but has no codes that says O2?

Any suggestions are welcomed ill keep posting

so i had one more day work in fuel filter and fuel line install went well cleaned throotel body and air intake system with specified cleaners ran car still had very ruff idle...hooked inductive timeing light up again to wires and found that both #1 and #2 cylinder 2 wires had no spark traced reason to cheap wire set that even with pullign them off just one time the spark plug end pulled off the wire and once there off there is little chance of reinstalling again. going to order a bosch sire cap combo online thursday as well as a throttle body gasket so I can pull the throttle body and remove the auxillery air valve and tps sensor cleaning and reinstallation however going to have to make gaskets for the air valve plate. ill see what happens after that. still have not pulled codes currently the engine light is not on and still suspect things like the ignitor, the injectors(cold start injector in particular, the primary coil, stuck egr, or cat converter on its way out...again more to come and any suggestions are welcome

still waiting on parts form texas advanced autoparts DC stay tuned

Ryan,
I think I have the same problem with my 92 Tercel. (142000 miles)
I worked fine for short trips, but after longer trips it would stall at stop. Iddle is very rough.
It burns a lot of oil.
Restarting with a hot engine was very difficult - and since last week it doesn't start at all.
I checked fuel pump- seems fine. Plugs are OK. Starter is fine, the battery is strong.
I can get the car started by pushing it ( it's got a manual transy, so it's doable).
Driving uphill is a challenge. This car use to be fast and agile, now is very lazy to respond.
I am going to check fuel presure on the distribution line and the compression on the cylinders tonight.
There's no easy way to check regulated fuel pressure, there's no test port, so I have to come up with some fittings.

A guy from work told me to check the compresion: is not enough compresion the mixture won't ignite.
And since there's a lot of smoke when starting the engine he said to check the valves.
I hope you'd continue to share your findings.
Good luck.
Ovi

Ryan,
on another site a user wrote that he found a clogged EGR valve. No more stalling for his car.

I forgot to mention another symptom: the engine runs hotter then usual. The temperature gage is almost in the red when on the freeway.
Did you see this on you car, Ryan?

I got my Tercell 92 running again this weekend.
The compresion in the cylinders was at 60psi, way low than the recommended 140psi.
I wasn't going the rebuild the engine ( just yet) so I dumped a can of carburator cleaner in the engine and cranked the engine by hand a few times.
I also increased the air gap on the plugs (just a touch, by eyeball).
I made sure the idle air valve ( the one right on top of the throttle) is nice and clean and I opened it up about one turn.
That did it for me.

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hey nice to see some of this is usefull so i just finished mine for today and its back on the road with great improvements...have some cell phone picutres that did nto come out well but the show the TB the aux air valve the VSV#1 and the vacuum diagram on the hood

replaced fuel filter that had never been changed
removed throttle body and cleaned
removed aux air valve from bottom of throttle body cleaned made new gasket and reinstalled
-reinstalled incorrectly so water went to vacuum and tried to run the car on radiator fluid for a secone not good
had to remove plugs and crank motor to get water out of cylinders tehn had to run the rest of it out once it was running got some help from tercel forum gto some good feed back on how to fix my hoses hookup this is the link that shows what i was working with
http://board.tercelonline.com/viewthread.php?tid=27334
replaced cap wires and plugs with bosch expensive but well worth it have strong firing on all four cylinders and all together is made with quality

after all that car runs much smoother cold and hot primarily from that igniton working correctly though the work on the air valve seems to have helped the valve really was not that dirty and works like a thermastat does letting water flow around the TB and contolling air through VSV#1 mounted by the upper motor mount...as can be seen by looking at the vacuum diagrams on the hood or online...

this work is on toyota nation and tercel forum as well

SO OVI i have read over your posts and have soem thoughts

(OVERHEAT) check basics make sure water pump is moving water start the car cold with radiator cap off and watch water when it gets up to temp a ruel of thumb is it shoudl be circulating if pump impeller is working properly if it is not you shuold think about chaging it...as well make sure there is no air in the system by keeping water full in radiator first then maintaning proper expansion tank coolant level second....check thermistat upper hose should have water in it flowing wwhen engine is hot becuase thermistat should be open...lastly but should be checked first you need a good operating radiator cap (no cracks on the gaskets) and make sure there are no visible leaks in the system like at the hose to the expansion chamber or in the hoses that go to heater core or hoses that go to aux air valve in the bottom of TB these are hard to see but the link i put in will shoe and explain that system

(stalling) as i did the ignition system must be working correctly good plugs, wires, rotor button, cap, igntion timing...
-old rules of thumb i have learned
-use timing light or spark tester to test if all wires are getting spark to plugs
-look at the wires at night in the dark and look for arking between wires this shows poor wire routing or cracked wires if you can see sparks arking from wire to wire or wire to metal
-make sure cap has no cracks or carbon tracking and that the inner terminal posts are not worn out

(compression) yeah thats bad need new compression and oil rings your loosing all that oil through combustion as well as gasket leaks if that is a issue i put all new gaskets in mine when i got it and a new oil pan the old one had rusted pin holes right through it

but if this car ran good not to long ago and has always burned oil then i would chase the ignition
hope this helps



so the car still has earratic idle and accelaration a symptom that it has had since i bought it

pulled codes stored from ECU and gives code 41 (open or short in TPS or ECU) so HAYNES says this will casue erratic idle because of the erratic signal being sent by the TPS to the ECU so im going to run the tests it gives and try to calibrate it may have to replace it

work will continue but going to drive it for a few weeks then go back at it

Ryan,
thanks for the good tips, you're quickly becoming a specialist in Tercel!
I'l check the water pump as you said - and I never thought of looking at the spark plug wires in the dark!
Have fun over there,
Ovi

yeah the old tercel turned from winter beater to full time car bacause when it runs right ill pull 30mpg i ahve had a lot of cars as most of us have and using these forums is always good refrence for me if i look hard enough there is always a solution that someone has found

so broke down and sent the car to a toyota technician who ran a compression check bad news yet good news I know whats wrong

compression psi #
1-125
2-25
3-50
4-150

so thinking about pulling the head with it still in the car and doing a visual inspection of intake and exhaust valves wount be surprised to find a burnt valve or bad seat

the rings hard to look at without dissassembly so may just try a leak test using gasoline

yeah make sure to pull the EGR and clean it really well, dont forget the rubber hose too. mine was packed with soot. clean inside the ports where it mounts to the manifold, i used starting fluid and a tooth brush. egr valve should hold suction from the rubber if you suck in on it. just man up and suck on it, put your toungue on the hose and it should suction to your tongue. and yeah....those plug wires are are weak huh?! i bought new ones, and the first time i tried to carefully remove one, it came apart. welcome to job security ville.