Hi again,

My 1980 20R California edition is starting to frustrate me.

Well, not so much the engine it's self, the lack of experienced "professional" mechanics in my area that can troubleshoot, tweek, adjust or repair a carbureted engine.

It starts up OK, from that point on things go down hill. The carb is dumping fuel in the right (passenger) port causing idle to be high. The bullseye shows a good gas level (between the tabs). It spits, sputters, hesitates on take-off. I can reach 55 mph (loses ummph after that) and I can hear/feel it miss-fire/sputter. It seems to "catch" and speedup. By catch I mean the sputtering stops for a fraction of a second while at steady speeds and I lurch foward.

At idle the revs are very high and cannot be adjusted down, plus it's mis-firing.

This is the second carb (previous owner, 70+ years young, replaced the original carb with a rebuild). When I bought the motorhome I had the above symptoms, discussed it with the previous owner who volunteered to exchange the carb at the same place bought this one.

I installed the replaced rebuilt carb and did my best to hook up the vacuum hoses by the chart on the hood. all the hose's appear to be new, not rotted or cracked. I am still dumping fuel with all the same symptoms.

I did most of the checks (Haynes manual) and tried to replace a few emission parts (MC valve and Thermo sensor). The dealer says "no longer available". Still I can't determine what is causing my difficulty.

While crawling over this thing I noticed:
- no O2 sensor, or I'm not looking in the right places. I did find a temp sensor after the cat, if this is bad could it cause false readings?. Haynes says "Fed, fuel injected 4 cyl models" in parenthases i'm assuming they're saying that only these models have O2 sensors?.
- exhaust pipe from the manifold flange splits into two 1 1/4"(?) pipes then combine again at the flange that connects to the cat. Is this normal or did someone in its history re-do the pipes?
- is there a ecm type control (in their infantcy) in these old vehicles?
- would the cat being bad/plugged be causing my erratic operation?
- I was thinking of trying yet another carb, from a different remanufacter... waste of time/money?

Thoughts and inputs greatly appreciated. My smog deadline coming up end of July.

I hope no one mind's if I recommend other Toyota motorhome owners with their mechanical questions to this forum. Most 4x4er's usually know their vehicles inside and out.

Thanks, I feel better just to have a listening ear.