1987 Camry Acceleration Problems

[nothernic]

I have an '87 Camry, 3S-FE engine, 262,000 miles, manual transmission, no modifications whatsoever, performance or otherwise (aside from some brighter headlights.)

This problem started about three weeks ago, and it was definitely NOT gradual. One night the car was fine, the next morning was when the problem started.

What it's doing is when I have the gas pedal down a certain amount, the engine will suddenly ***** & hesitate, as if I'm pulling a huge boulder behind me. The car will continue to accelerate, although at a snail's pace.

While this is going on, I have noticed that if I back off the throttle just a wee bit until the problem goes away, it will then accelerate normally, and then, most of the time I can carefully apply more throttle to get it to accelerate even more.

If I press the gas pedal too fast, however, it will almost always ***** & hesitate.

If it makes any difference, the problem seems to be SLIGHTLY better in the mornings, when the engine is cold, and then after even just a few minutes of driving, the problem rears its ugly head in full force.

Things I have tried:

1. At first I thought it was a bad tank of gas, because the night before it started, I was almost out of gas so I refilled in the morning and then a few hours later the problem started. So I burned through that tank, and got another one from a different station, but the problem was still there.

2. I then thought of the throttle position sensor, so I checked it with a ohmmeter but it tested good. The change in resistance was smooth throughout the operation of the throttle, and the other test points on the TPS also tested good. I did have to adjust the stop screw on the throttle assembly just a bit to bring the TPS to spec but this didn't make any difference on the problem.

The next thing I'm going to try, pending suggestions from this board, is inspecting and/or replacing the distributor cap & rotor. Several things I have read are pointing in that direction, and I know that the thing hasn't been changed in probably at least 60,000 miles.

Most of the maintenance things should still be good and a good number of them are (relatively) new, such as the alternator, timing belt, oil seals, belts, spark plugs, wires, fuel filter, etc.

I'm not too knowledgeable about the fuel system but something makes me want to believe this isn't a fuel problem because of how the problem started - very suddenly. No gradualness at all. Just from good to bad. And the problem hasn't gotten worse or better, it's just staying the same.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike

[MyV6Flys]

Pull the Dist-cap, I bet there is green growths on the metal contacts. 60,000 is a long way for a cap to go.

Look at the end of the rotor, it should still be smooth not pitted.

[nothernic]

Well, I've found the problem.

Saturday morning I took the distributor cap off, and removed the rotor. There was some kind of mystery fluid inside the cap, but it looked like it had dribbled down from the outside. Otherwise the cap & rotor were in pretty good condition.

So, the next thing I went to check was the spark plug wires. I removed all four wires and the number one and two wires were completely shot. One of them had two big cracks in the insulation, and the other one showed clear signs of arcing.

Upon replacing them, the car drove like a dream again. It also fixed my rough idling problem!!!

Upon further investigation of the original owner of the car, it turns out that the spark plug wires that I replaced this weekend were the original ones. From 130,000 MILES AGO.

So what have we learned here?

1. A cheap set of wires will last about 130,000 miles until the car becomes almost undriveable.

2. Changing the wires does wonders for the idling properties of a car.

3. Check the simple things first.

See pictures below.

[nothernic]

Man yall some chumps I hope yall know that.