Odd MAF Sensor fuel guage issue

[Walking Eagle]

I bought a 06 DBL Cab TRD Sport in November with 118,500miles. I'm at around 129k now. So a month or two ago on the way to work the engine died. No sputtering, no warning just dead. My gps has a OBDII interface and it gave the error code for a MAF sensor or clogged air cleaner. I was pretty sure the air cleaner was fine, it only had a couple thousand on it, but I had been through some pretty bad mud. The fuel guage was also near empty, but the light was on. Wife was on her way home from night shift so I called autozone, bought an air filter and MAF sensor, had her pick up a couple gallons of gas as well. Put in the gas, changed the MAF sensor and air filter, truck started and ran fine. Cleared the codes, and no issues for weeks. Of course doing all three at once had no idea which fixed it.

Then the same exact thing happened last week. Engine suddenly dead. Same code. Figured the reman sensor was bad. Took it back to autozone under warantee, put the new one in, and noda. Ran to the house, I had about two gallons in a gas can, dumped it in the truck and cranked and it sputtered to life.

So, is the warning light not going off? Is the gas guage reading wrong? Is there something wrong with the pick-up? Is there something wrong with the filter? Is there any way I'm not going to have to drop the tank?

 

[Thundra]

I have an 03 Sequoia. I discovered it had this little gremlin in the fuel system. Not so much a mechanical one but an electrical thing. Even with a full tank, the gauge would dive to nothing and the gas light would be on. I was told to disconnect the battery for 5-10 minutes and let the thing reboot. Bad idea. Doesn't fix the problem. In addition the cpu gets pissy and causes the engine to quit. My 00 Tundra does the same thing when the battery dies. I find that turning the key from off to start without turning it over about 5 times semi resets it and the issue goes away. The gremlin still lives but I'm not worried about it. If you have a DC, do you have the DTE display on the roof? I go by that when it happens. Also could be as simple as a fuel filter.

 

[ToyotaDon]

There may be something wrong with the fuel sender, but you have to take it out to test it. If it shows fuel, but the tank sounds hollow when you bang on it, that's a sure sign, though. It's been awhile since I've had a tank out of a Tacoma, but you may be able to lift the bed and access the sending unit.

Once the sender is out, use an ohmmeter to measure the resistance at different levels. There's a spec in the FSM for full and empty, if the empty resistance is wrong, it'll make your gauge read wrong.

HTH