2000 Tundra Crank, No Start, Baffled At What's Left To Do

Hey all, long-time listener first-time caller.
I would like to preface this thread by saying that I have read every thread that I could find between this site, Tundra Solutions, and Tundra Talk to no avail, and the problem has officially crossed the line into "I'm too stupid to figure this out on my own" territory, and I am losing my mind trying to figure out what's ailing poor Trucky.
I bought the truck August 2021 and immediately replaced timing belt and water pump, all of my fluids, and the rack and pinion steering assembly. Trucky has been a dream to own, as I'm sure you all know, I stay on top of my preventative maintenance and I have next to no issues at all. These trucks are just about perfect vehicles to me.
About a month ago my girlfriend pointed out a gasoline smell while we were driving around the city. I had figured that it was because I had just done a rear seat delete and emissions odors were coming up through newly exposed holes (I could also audibly hear more outside sounds, as if a window was open where my rear seat used to be).
However, after parking for an hour and starting the truck, the engine stalled when putting it into reverse. Uh-oh. I was able to start it up after giving it 30 seconds or so and trying again, decided that the camping trip wasn't such a good idea until I got to the root of that, and drove us straight home.
I open up the hood, and lo and behold, the fuel hose that connects to the solid fuel line has deteriorated and is leaking gas about 8 inches away from my engine. Yikes!
I replace the hose, and while I'm at it, the spark plugs because I haven't done that in the 2 years that I've owned the truck and I had no way of knowing what the previous owner had done (spark plugs may have been OEM, I was pretty stunned).
Okay so, I had stalled at startup because fuel was leaking right before the injectors, makes sense to me.
Everything is copacetic for about 4 days. Then, leaving my local big brand department store after buying some groceries to go an a camping trip, it happens:
Crank no start. Crank no start. Crank no start about 3 more times. Start, engine sluggishly chugs until it rams up to about 2200 rpms. Way higher than it has ever started up at. I let it idle for a minute, rpms go to normal speed, I drive home.
My common sense (or lack thereof) says fuel delivery is an issue still. I replace the fuel filter, blew out the old one (stock, and a ton of sludge came blasting out, this had to be the problem!).
Fine for two days, I start to reschedule my camping trip for the following weekend. The friday before I planned to leave, in the morning it was crank no starting worse than it ever had. I actually stalled out switching into reverse to park in a parking lot.
Okay, there's only one part left in the fuel delivery system. Dropping the fuel tank to replace the fuel pump is outside of my capabilities space-wise and time-wise, as I am really trying to get on this camping trip. I reluctantly take it to a shop and get the fuel pump done.
It starts right up! Beautiful, just beautiful. Afterwards I drive home and clean the hell out off my throttle body and MAF, just in case. Couldn't hurt. Also handle fuel pump relay and starter relay, because this truck has 230k on it, they are still stock, and if they aren't part of the problem now they will be sooner rather than later
I drive out to pick my girlfriend up and head out that weekend. Trucky is starting perfectly.
I then stall out pulling into a parking lot. My heart sinks. Camping trip will not be happening today I guess.
My girlfriend's dad, a classic car upholsterer, could probably figure it out. I drive to his shop, give him the rundown and he immediately says it's the cam position sensor. After doing a ton of research it appears he is right. What's more, there seems to be a common issue that when the timing belt is changed if the sensor wire isn't routed and secured properly the belt can chew through the wire.
Okay, now we are getting somewhere.
The sensor wire is in fair condition, has not been chewed through by any belts. I test the sensor with a multimeter, passing metal in front of the magnet, reading stays exactly the same. I buy a new one (duralast from autozone, as I needed to solve this problem and couldn't wait for a denso one ordered from a reputable source), test it, the reading fluctuates as I pass a wrench in front of it. Okay, old one was worn or seized close or something along those lines. I replace it.
Trucky is alive!! Thank goodness.
I drive around the next week daily and everything is perfect. In fact between all of the miscellaneous things I have replaced my truck feels marginally better than it ever has.
Yesterday, we are finally going on this camping trip. We drive out to Rainbow Basin in Barstow. We enjoy the trail, take some nice pictures, have a good afternoon.
We realize that we forgot a couple small things so we drive into town to finish stocking up before we get to the campground.
Truck cranks, no start in the gas station parking lot. First time since replacing the cam position sensor. Damn it all.
I start it up, engine is a little hesitant but after a couple seconds of chugging it gets to speed and I drive home. Camping trip postponed AGAIN.
I replace the crank position sensor, as it failing has very similar symptoms to the cam position sensor and what I am experiencing. Starts up. Turn off the engine. Cranks, no start, cranks, no start.
I'm at my wit's end now lol.

Rundown of recent work:
Spark plugs
fuel hose
fuel pump
fuel filter
MAF clean
Throttle body clean
fuel pump relay
starter relay
cam position sensor
crank position sensor

I am planning on returning the cam position sensor and getting a new one installed. Maybe the duralast one was faulty? I'm not hopeful.

The weirdest aspect is I have not received ONE SINGLE check engine light. I know that the ECM is sending them when I get them, I have an OBDII that I can check pending codes and I had one come up 6 weeks ago when I accidentally started my truck without my air intake connected to the throttle body.
When Trucky is running it's strong as an ox. No misfires, smooth idle, smooth shifting, perfect acceleration, no malfunctioning electronics or anything. I feel like I could tow a house with it.
It just has a really hard time getting running. I have not stalled since I replaced the cam position sensor last week.
If anyone at all has any insight into this, myself and my truck would greatly appreciate it.

For today, I am planning on returning the cam position sensor and getting a new one installed. Maybe the duralast one was faulty? I'm not hopeful but I don't know what else I can do at this point.

 

Sounds like you’re on the right track with it being a fuel problem. Perhaps you could do a fuel pressure test when the truck is priming before starting? Or maybe a leaking injector causing a flooding issue? These are just guesses. Do you have the fsm for your truck?

 

I have a pdf of the fsm. Fuel pressure is going to be the next step if I continue having issues. I replaced the cam position sensor and it started right up after sitting for 16 hours so maybe it was just a defective part. If the fuel pressure is dropping to nothing between startups then that seems to me like the fuel injectors would be leaking. It's just so strange that after changing the cam position sensor everything was golden for a week, then the issues started out of the blue after being parked for 5 minutes. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills lol.

 

These trucks don't like non-OEM/non-Denso electrical parts. But I don't think that's the problem.

Have you tried bypassing the fuel resistor yet?

Have you read the fuel circuitry diagram yet?

 

I have not tried bypassing the fuel resistor yet. Nor have I read the fuel circuitry diagram. I did check the resistance and it was reading 4.8 ohms. In a separate thread that I also saw you in a diagram was posted with instructions on how to test the fuel pump resistor, and it said the resistance should be set between 0.70 and 0.76. Could this indicate a problem?
I will read over the fuel circuitry diagram tomorrow at work and try to bypass the resistor after work and see if that helps any.

 

Scratching head and have to ask, are you sure about 4.8 ohms. Normally a resistor will be lower in value or open if it's going bad or bad.

In any case, we only use the resistor after the ECM determines it's time to energize the fuel pump relay(at idle or light load). Before that time(cold start for instance), the fuel pump relay is de-energized and current flows thru normally closed contacts 3 and 4 of fuel pump relay straight to pump, bypassing the resistor.

As you mentioned, unplug resistor and jumper the 2 conductors of harness and see results.

 

After doing some research last night and this morning I realize I did a few things wrong with testing the resistor. First, I had tested it immediately after driving for 90 minutes. It was not overly hot but definitely not 68 degrees. Secondly I neglected to check the base resistance of my meter, which will cause it to skew one way or the other but I'm not sure if it would cause it to deviate by that much.
At any rate, the truck started fine this morning when I was moving it quickly into the driveway. So it appears that the issue is only happening when it is warmed up. Later on I will re-test the resistor cold, as well as check my fuel pressure and bypass the resistor.

 

That's one classic example of something a dying resistor. And it's a symptom others have reported on here, truck only fails to start when hot.

If I were you - since it shouldn't kill anything to bypass - you may just want to bypass it now, and see if the problem stops. At this rate, it should strike back within a week's time of regular driving.

Although I totally understand if you wanted to keep driving until it fails, and while in a fail state, try to bypass, and if it runs, that's a good indication. Your truck, your call!

 

Today after work I retested the resistor
My meter's resistance was .4 ohms and the resistor was testing at 4.4, so, 4 ohms subtracting the meter's value.
I bypassed the resistor with a 16 gauge wire, truck started fine. I drove it for 40 minutes, parked for a few minutes, started right up.
I waited an hour, started it, engine cranked only once, stumbled a little, but then caught and revved up to 1800 rpms (this is a little high but I'm assuming it's because the fuel pump is starting in "high" mode with a warm engine). Within 30 seconds what I'm assuming to be a little excess fuel burned off and the idle was a stable 700ish.
I will try starting the truck again after it has sat for a few more hours just to be certain.
If the truck starts up I will be purchasing a new OEM resistor and will drive with the old one bypassed until the part comes in. It's a brand new fuel pump so I don't want to put any excessive wear by just leaving it bypassed which I've seen a couple guys on various auto forums do.
I will also update if the fix works so anyone in the future having this problem can see the conclusion.
Thanks a ton to you guys for pointing me in this direction, I would have definitely never figured this out on my own!

 

Glad to see you've potentially found the culprit

 

How'd this turn out?

 

I am having a similar issue I believe

 

Any update @Official-Kurt-Russell