Just got a call from my roommate, he's driving through Columbus, OH right now on his way to St. Louis. His check engine light keeps going on and off and when he "gives it gass, the engine stumbles". Thats all i could make out from him as his phone kept cutting in and out...Im guessing its hesitating to get into gear and drive, but its a manual???

Truck: '89 4Runner v6 Manual

Things he's done in the past week: SAS

IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTION FOR HIM...PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP. He's already missed 2 days of classes getting the SAS done. Last thing he needs is to be stuck in the boonies of Ohio or IN for a week.

Have him check the code! All he needs is a paperclip, jump T1 and E1, turn the key to on (not start), and count blips, pause, blips.

On the older trucks (85? - 95) the check engine light has something to do with the efi system... So he might be ok to stop and check the code, then keep going for a while. When my CEL came on it was the O2 censor going bad, something that I could have driven on for a while. This is just my opinion, and could be wrong in some cases... Anyway, congrats on the SAS!

Well he stopped last night and was hoping to pull the code, but he never called back so I dont think he was able to. The light kept going on and off <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Ohh well, nother day of classes missed <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" />

That happened to me before and it turn out to be the alternator not charging. I was running on battery power.
Have him stop at one of those chain autoparts and have them test the charging system for free.

Well he made it...unfortunately the last 175 miles was on a tow truck:

Well at least he's back. Any ideas yet what the problem is?

Problem 1: Frost bite...he drove through snow and sub zero temp topless.

Problem 2: Fuel Pump, he thinks.

Problem 3: Really light wallet.

it wont even start now?

i'd start with the easy stuff.

pull code if efi, check cap and rotor, plugs, wires, maybe even do the vaccum test for the egr if its just stumbling. i was driving down the road, and a bad rotor caused my truck to buck so wildly that i could not drive it, finally it got to where i could not even start it. this happened over a 10 min span. spent 50 bucks and a day towing it. ended up being a 4 dollar rotor.

could be alot of things, give us a better discription of ehats going on.