Surging during light to moderate acceleration

Not yet but I certainly can do so. Would tail pipe and all need to be installed back? I'd love to have your 6" system.....

 

Where I come from white, milky goo in the underside of the oil filler cap IS coolant. In the oil. Coolant in the oil. Not good. And where I come from....NOT NORMAL. Sound the siren.

Any of you other Tundra hooligans agree?

 

Agree but it can also be normal from driving short trips. The moisture doesn’t quite get cooked off enough in the oil.

 

I've definitely seen it go both ways. I just got home from a 2 hour drive to pick up my other 2 wheel rings. Pulled the oil cap and it's not completely gone but significantly less than what it was the other day after sitting overnight. I'm gonna be doing an oil change sometime soon and I'm even considering sending an oil sample and having it tested. We used to do these samples with every oil change at work so it shouldn't be too expensive. And definitely gives me ground to stand on if I need to file a warranty claim. Truck is going to Toyota tomorrow at 1 to have a trans service and the transmission ECU flashed. I'll update on the results from that. The trans has been serviced multiple times in the past according to the car fax. And contrary to popular belief there is indeed a serviceable filter in there.

 

Weirdest thing. Today I woke up took the kids to school, surging just like it had been. Truck sit for a while. Drove it to Knoxville and back, approximately 50 miles there. 50 back. No surge what so ever. It's warmer today than it has been in a while. It's also dry today which we haven't seen much of here lately.

 

Update. Surging/misfiring was pretty bad today. Worse than it was yesterday for sure. Took it to Toyota to have a trans service performed. They said it was just done 20k miles before I bought the truck. Had a seasoned 20 year tech that was very knowledgeable on Toyotas and my Tundra in general. He had seen the exact same thing before and it was a fuel pump. He drove the truck multiple times. One time with me in the passenger seat. He checked the trans fluid and condition. Checked trans fluid pressures while the truck was surging etc etc. He logged the report and is gonna get with Toyota on possible causes but he said not to worry about the torque converter or trans they seem fine. It's more of a miss than it is anything. He asked how long it had been on plugs and throttle body cleaning. Sunday. It has been since Sunday. And no change after the plugs and cleaning. I also asked him to check for ecu flashes or updates. Everything is up to the latest and greatest. No tsb for it. He was just as stumped as I am. Could be a fuel injector. Could be a coil. Could be a fuel pump. Could be an O2 sensor. The dealership did not charge me a dime. Which I may have the truck back to them Monday for further diagnostics.

 

Shot in the dark. But have you checked to see if there is water under the coil packs?

 

Also not sure I mentioned this yet. My truck is a flex fuel. And the alcohol density showed 14% when hooked to the Modis. Not sure that has anything to do with anything but I remember seeing it. Would a wrong reading have ill effects like the miss/surge I'm experiencing? I need a scanner to see that % before fueling when it's surging and after fueling? Or is that all built into the fuel pump assembly?

 

I didn't notice any water. It's done a lot of raining and I've washed the truck what seems like 100 times since I got it. So it's definitely a possibility that something is getting wet. I didn't see any signs of it on the old plugs. Like the porcelain or ceramic whatever they are made of shows no signs of the spark going down the sides of them or anything like that. I'll look them over again really good when I get home. If that's what you're meaning by water under the coils. I'll also pull these plugs out and double check everything. I'd never want to own up to making the mistake but I'd be ok with it at this point.

 

I also asked about the exhaust causing an issue. He said he's seen many different ones with exhaust and no issues. I still think I'll put the factory exhaust back on and pull the negative cable for a couple of hours and see if it changes. I don't see it causing it but never hurts to try the free stuff first.

 

Asked him about the oil cap milky goo. Normal for short trips was his response. Drive it for an extended trip and see if it's gone. Done did and it was not completely gone but definitely made a difference in how much goo was there.

 

I don’t see how it could be your exhaust. But do what you gotta do. And if I were you I would never run flex fuel. Ever.

 

I don't even think anyone around here offers anything less than 87 octane. With the usual 10% ethanol. To my knowledge that's all thats been ran through it. And I run mid grade. But who knows what was ran through it the first 220,000 miles.

 

The milky Goo is completely normal and is attributed to short commuting where the engine doesn't fully reach operating temp and the moisture in the crank doesn't get a chance to evaporate.

 

Reassuring to hear that. Several have said the same thing now so I am not nearly as worried as I was when I first popped that cap. Pretty sure my heart sank to my socks. It's back up in my chest area now though.

 

As far as I can tell there is no replaceable fuel filter. Only the small filter that is either on the fuel pump or in it. And from what the Toyota tech said today there are multiple fuel pumps? A primary and a secondary. I could be wrong on that and misunderstood him. I do know there is an ecu for the fuel pump.

 

Anyone familiar with flex fuel problems? I have done some reading and sorta understand how it works. But what sensor tells the ecm what the alcohol density is? And do these sensors go bad? A flex fuel vehicle is a very complicated little bugger. I've seen the sticker on plenty of flex fuel vehicles but until now I never trully knew what it meant. Capable of running on lower octane fuel with more ethanol is all I figured. How it does it is definitely more complicated than that.

 

Are you running E85 and having issues?
Where in the RPM range is surging occuring? Does it follow RPM or engine load?
Flexfuel trucks from my understanding meant they changed all natural rubber o-ring to synthetic. Ethanol destroys natural rubber compounds.
The fuel pumps were upgraded to accommodate higher volume of fuel. E85 has less energy per density than petroleum fuels.

 

No E85 here. Just curious on what sensor measures the fuel and if they are prone to failure. Also curious of its location. Is it built into the fuel pump?

 

Surge/misfire most commonly occurs around 2k rpm. And if I had to say it is definitely during light engine load. Especially felt when I hit a hill. And the trans is in a gear where it would normally upshift but due to the load it hangs out in that gear a little bit longer. Top the hill trans grabs next gear and surge is gone. It's also coming and going. It might do this all day. Might not do it on the next trip. Hard to pinpoint anything. I have 2 fears. Is the fuel pump on its way out and it's gonna leave me stranded? Am I harming anything by continuing to drive it?

 

The alcohol density reading that you mentioned has me wondering. That seems kinda high, I wonder if you could mention it to the tech next time around and request that it be reset. Another idea might be to see if you can find some non-ethanol gasoline in your area and fill it with that in an effort to reduce the possibility of the filling station you used last having a little too much alcohol in their mix. Although most of the posts that I can recall where people were having high alcohol reading were also having hard starting issues (flooding). Just throwing random ideas around.

 

I did throw in a tank of 91 octane to see if it made any difference. It did not. However when I went back to a tank of mid grade the surge was gone. But I can't say for sure as it has come and gone with the same tank of fuel. Nothing I've done made it a definite that it was causing any difference. Plugs throttle body turning nannies off or on. Tow haul mode turning it to the s-mode and locking out a certain gear etc. It did it no matter the change. Full tank of 91 octane or half a tank of something different. Raining or dry outside. Warm or cold etc. It did it cold dry warm.

 

I'd love to be able to monitor the alcohol density of each tank. I need me a scan tool capable of that. I was using a friend's when I noticed the 14% reading. I guess a Bluetooth one that connects to my Android would be capable of this? And a paid version of an app? I'm behind on all this. Wife drives a Lexus and I've had Toyotas so I haven't needed to hook to anything in forever.

 

Simply because it was a higher octane doesn't mean it was non-ethanol. Ultimately, I think that I'm going to lean toward it being the fuel pump...not for any specific reason, just an unfounded hunch.

 

I too have read about the hard starting. I've also seen many fuel pump ecu failures causing the trucks to die and not start back. Mainly sending low voltage to the pump. And if not properly diagnosed the fuel pump would be changed and still not start. I'm good with the idea that the fuel pump is causing it. I can handle changing a fuel pump. But the ECU that controls it not so much. I'm guessing that ecu has to be programmed after replacement. And I doubt I have any way of doing that. I just hope I can get it right the next parts purchase and not throw parts at it.

 

And thanks for all of you guys. I'll get it. Eventually. Still love my 227,000 mile Tundra.

 

There is a Weigels nearby with ethanol free gas. I'll put some in when this tank is gone just to see if it makes any difference. Definitely worth a shot.

 

No surge/miss all day today. It was cold and dry out and I didn't have to put any gas in. Tomorrow it'll be getting some ethanol free gas. If it surges again after fueling I'll be even more confused. And that might just might be what's going on. It's possible it has the miss/surge on days I have to buy gas. Which seems to be about every 3-4 days.

 

Filled up with non ethanol gas yesterday. Truck had not surged for a few days. Today it's back. I had drove it a good distance with no surge. Seems like it happens when I get gas and then after it sits overnight the next day it surges. Wondering if the sensor that tells the ecm what ethanol level is in the gas is possibly causing the surging. I drive many miles on my days off and refuel pretty frequently. I need to monitor that alcohol density. Anyone use torque or torque pro with a Bluetooth obd2 device?

 

I wonder if it could be something as stupid as a gas cap.