Crank angle sensor (and related issues)

[Danger Mouse]

I have an intermittent problem, where the engine cuts out randomly, but will restart immediately and then drive fine. When it cuts out, the rev counter also drops to zero.

I've had the ute at an auto sparky, who went through the wiring loom and sorted out some dodgy stuff (the guys who did the conversion for the previous owner were very good mechanically, not so much electrically).

Due to the behaviour (definitely electrical), I'd like to check the crank sensor, but before I go crawling around under the ute, can someone give me a quick pointer to it's location?

Any other suggestions? Could also be the immobiliser, the alarm was also installed by the previous owner and it has it's own issues now and then.

 

[Zuffen]

The Crank Angle Sensor is below the front of the crank shaft immediately behind the harmonic balancer.

If the alarm is having issues I'd by-pass the immobilising and see if that fixes it.

These sorts of problem are quite often a trial and error process.

 

[Danger Mouse]

Cheers for that. Yeah it's going to be one of those fun, find the intermittent fault games.

The auto sparky was pretty sure he found the problem with the main fuse block and used high-current bolt in fuses instead of the stock Hilux fuse block, but not so...

At least I have 3 weeks off over Xmas, so can spend some time on it.

 

[gloverman]

I get alot of people wanting crank angle sensors. Sold my last spare one today ( still have a test one). Yet I very rarely see them fail myself. I prefer to flick the one out my my truck and change in the suspect one to test it as I drive my vehicle everyday. If your sensor turned up I could do the same for you.

Common issues I see are stuffed ECU's. Caps leaking in them
Coil fail all the time now. Often they start off with the odd misfire , sometimes stalling due to the irregular pattern on the feedback to the ECU and they get worse from there. Sometimes they work well in the morning and fail in the afternoon.

Does your ECU throw any codes? Sometimes they give a bit of a clue.

Also is it cutting out or stalling??

Cheers

 

[Danger Mouse]

I get alot of people wanting crank angle sensors. Sold my last spare one today ( still have a test one). Yet I very rarely see them fail myself. I prefer to flick the one out my my truck and change in the suspect one to test it as I drive my vehicle everyday. If your sensor turned up I could do the same for you.

Common issues I see are stuffed ECU's. Caps leaking in them
Coil fail all the time now. Often they start off with the odd misfire , sometimes stalling due to the irregular pattern on the feedback to the ECU and they get worse from there. Sometimes they work well in the morning and fail in the afternoon.

Does your ECU throw any codes? Sometimes they give a bit of a clue.

Also is it cutting out or stalling??

Cheers

Yeah I don't suspect it's a faulty crank angle sensor, just want to check it's got a good, clean connection. Even sending my one down to you would probably prove nothing, as it's very intermittent, I can go well over a week without it happening, then it'll do it a couple of times a day, but always restart, then nothing again for 2 weeks.

What happens is I'll be driving along and the engine will die, like there's no power getting to it. At the same time the rev counter will drop to zero, but the stereo continues to work, lights are all good etc. The ute will start to decelerate if I still have it in gear and the engine just dies completely if I push in the clutch. If I'm rolling and in gear, after 1-2 seconds it'll fire up again like nothing happened and continue on. If I'm stationary and the clutch is in, I just hit the starter and it fires up again immediately and again continues like nothing happened.

Not got as far as fault codes, will have a poke around on the weekend and see what the ECU says as well. Luckily I'm an electronic engineer by trade and used to work in an electronics test and calibration lab, so know my way around a circuit board and one end of a soldering iron from the other, so can check for leaking caps and replace if necessary.

In fairness, the auto sparky isn't well versed in 1UZ conversions (although they definitely know their stuff, they always have some very cool cars in the workshop too), so I think the ute would benefit spending some time with you so you can give it a professional once-over. There's a couple of other things I'm not happy with, like the O2 sensors have been cut (I know not really necessary) and it won't idle when cold, so those with the current issue mean I should get a 1UZ expert to look at it. Will have a play next week, then might bring it down in the new year sometime.