Yotalife29

Got an 89 lifted Toyota pickup with a 3.0v6 bought it for $500 it had no spark at all so finally bought a new igniter, coil, and distributor put all in fired right up but sounded like god awful ˟˟˟˟ back firing poping thought it was timing. After a few short mins and a compression test later found the problem lol blown head gasket tore it down rebuilt the whole motor with brand new heads, cams and everything put it together and 0 power from the wire my distributor plugs into above the where the cam is any help would be very greatly appreciated.

13Swords

Sounds like a connector or something didn't get hooked back up when you re-installed the engine. 9 times out of 10 it's usually something simple like this. Just go over all the engine wiring thoroughly and look for disconnected or loose connectors. Don't "half butt" it after all that good work. I'd also get some electrical contact cleaner & spray out the connector pins as I go, one by one, to be sure I had good contact in each connector. The truck is 31 years old so there is bound to be some dirt & junk around those connections that could be acting like an "open" & keeping the voltage from flowing..

Yotalife29

I have completely re done everything I found a ground strap that wasn't plugged in, now I have 0 power to anything I'm seriously stumped. I got this truck because it had 0 spark got it to fire up, rebuild the entire engine as I've done on about 30+ engines and now nothing??? I'm completely stumped on this Toyota.

old87yota

Let's back up a minute. You said you don't have power to anything. Is that actually true?

Does everything else seem to work and you just are not getting spark?

Specifically list what works and what doesn't work, then we can start our electrical diagnostics from there.

scope103

Gee, how hard can it be? Get your multimeter, start at the battery, work your way through the fuse panel to the EFI relay to the distributor. Don't forget the "wiggle test." If it fired once and now you have no electrical power, you probably have an intermittent break somewhere.

Yeah, there's a reason the seller was willing to take $500.

Yotalife29

1st I had power to the dash gauges but NOT to my distributor..
Now I literally have no power to anything in my dash, or to my distributor.
I do have power to my igniter and to my coil, I've just taken the intake off and checked and triple checked every wire, plug, and ground they are all hooked up. I bought the truck for $500 from a young firefighter kid he said he was driving to work and it was loosing power then died. So I then checked everything and it was a bad igniter so $248 later I hit the key and it fired right up sounded like ˟˟˟˟ and out of time so checked timing and everything was perfect so I then did a compression test all cylinders had 120 except #3 and #5 had 90 pulled both heads off rebuilt everything... put it back together and now well idk thought it was a ground or I missed a plug but now I'm stumped.

scope103

Visual inspection is always a good place to start, but now you have to look for the electrons. And they're so darned small! Use a multimeter. You have the Factory Service Manual (well, you needed it for an engine rebuild), so tracing the wiring shouldn't be that big of a deal.