2000 Limited TRD refresh/repair story

I have. It's likely corrosion inside the wire, which I can't really look at while I'm at school. It's just so weird that it's so infrequent.

 

Did another round trip to my girlfriend's out in Iowa for the weekend, same as usual. 430ish miles each way, one tank of gas each way. I think the low fuel light has burnt out, it didn’t come on when the tank got pretty low. Not surprising to me- this truck has spent a lot of time near empty.

This time, however, things didn't go as smoothly as they have before. All was fine for the first couple hours, but about 25 miles west of Dubuque, Ia, at about 8:15pm, the #7 coil went out.

Normally it'll miss once or twice every few minutes, give you sort of a warning. Not this time- instant dead miss. CEL flashing immediately. I keep a spare coil with me in the truck, so no big deal, right? Wrong! Pulled over, and my 10mm socket just spun on the bolt. It was super rusty. I ended up having to drive back to Dubuque to a parts store. Long story short, the guys at the O'rilleys in Dubuque were the absolute greatest. Zero hesitation to offer their time, tools, and help. The owner and manager even stayed after close to help me remove the stripped bolt. Definitely would've had to spend the night in Dubuque if it wasn't for their generosity. They even gave me a new bolt.

I couldn't believe how kind they were to me- all I bought from them was some vice grips. That's the Iowa experience right there! Made my day.

Sunset was nice, before everything went wrong.


Hit 216k too.

 

This sounds like the only positive O'reillys experience I've ever heard. In my dozen or so experiences, it's always been extremely negative. And some of the things I've heard from others on here looking for help, their staff told them or lied to them about (out of ignorance or otherwise) is alarming.

Glad you got it sorted, and super weird about the coil pack bolt. The threads were OK in the hole, it was the fastener that ate shit and died?

 

Agreed. I've only been to one other O'rilleys, but the guy helping me was clueless. All the employees at this one seemed to be friends, including the owner, so I'm sure that played a part in their knowledge/care.

Threads looked great, they always do. Once you get it loose they always look great, the gold zinc coating still there. It's the bolt heads that got dissolved from years of salt. I forget that it used to be a very, very rusty truck.

This photo was taken a while ago, it’s normally much cleaner than this. But check out the rust on all the fasteners:

 

Sounds like when you get home it'd be good to replace all of them
Edit: Just the bolts

 

Iowans are the greatest.

 

I was wondering if anyone else was doing this

 

I think at least a couple of us on here are doing double springs. I'm not sure what advantage it provides, but why not, right?

 

One makes no sense. Double gives even spring tension top and bottom.