Temporary Engine stumble after water crossing

[SmokingRocks]

Title says it all, went through some good deep water this weekend and dropped a cylinder or two. I pulled over and checked the typical culprit electrical connections which had no affect.

Figured I’d drive back to camp to have a better place to work on it and it fixed itself. So wherever the water was that was causing the problem was hot enough to evaporate off Which leads me to believe it was getting down the spark plug holes. Thoughts?

Is this an indicator that I need new plug wires or plugs?

My buddies 80 with 33’s and a 3” Lift did the same bog multiple times without drama...

 

[Tools R Us]

The most common cause is water getting into the distributor. Is the cap gasket good? Pluging the upper breather hole helps.

 

[scottryana]

Yeah my money is on the distributor.

 

[SmokingRocks]

Good call I was thinking that might be the culprit too, here's a clip of my buddy taking the cruiser I sold him through the pits.

 

[Tools R Us]

The distributor needs to be vented. The early ones have 3 vent holes, sometime in '97, it was reduced to 2 vent holes. For casual fording, the one that was deleted causes the most problem, the fan splashes water right into it. It's next to the harness plug, easy to see, we seal it with a dab of RTV, solves the problem.

 

[Proven]

I've also found that water on top of the cylinder head, can get down into the pistons...somehow. I've had to pull a plug and dry it out sometimes after washing the engine. Now I try to be more careful.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

If there is mud water on the head my vote is plug seals. Didnt see enough time in the water for the distributor to get wet.

 

[SmokingRocks]

If there is mud water on the head my vote is plug seals. Didnt see enough time in the water for the distributor to get wet.

Thanks yea thats my buddies rig in the video just posted it to show the depth. My rig sits on 35's and a 4" lift so it's higher. There was muddy water up to the valve cover but I didn't think it went over the engine. So Its probably the distributor.

Thanks guys

 

[inkpot]

You can likely recreate the problem by hosing off a running motor at the carwash.water seems to enjoy crawling into the dizzy base thru the vent holes.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

You can likely recreate the problem by hosing off a running motor at the carwash.water seems to enjoy crawling into the dizzy base thru the vent holes.

Great idea on how to cause the problem but not much help on where the problem is. It could be the distributor getting, the water getting past the plug head seals or both.

 

[thegadgetguy]

After driving through a number of foot deep puddles at medium speed I had a real bad stumble. Thought it was the distributor at first as that’s always the likely culprit, but it turned out it was water in the spark plug tubes. Drying them out fixed the issue. I don’t have the spark plug coverplate with the Toyota emblem on it on my engine, which may have exasperated the issue.

 

[Technician1985]

This happened to me as well but I have a 3f-e.

 

[Tools R Us]

After driving through a number of foot deep puddles at medium speed I had a real bad stumble. Thought it was the distributor at first as that’s always the likely culprit, but it turned out it was water in the spark plug tubes. Drying them out fixed the issue. I don’t have the spark plug coverplate with the Toyota emblem on it on my engine, which may have exasperated the issue.

The spark plug wires should be sealed, if not, likely need to be replaced. When installing, we put a skin of silicone grease on the boot sealing points, helps with sealing and removing with less chance of damage.

The LX should have a cover with the Lexus emblem, vastly superior!

 

[inkpot]

Great idea on how to cause the problem but not much help on where the problem is. It could be the distributor getting, the water getting past the plug head seals or both.

Yur supposed to aim the wand at only ONE area at a time. If that's too hard to control, then maybe a garden hose turned down low would work?