1985 Camry gas engine

I need some help with my 85 Camry. It has been running very fine until about a month ago. I have been doing the required maintenance, timing belt, tuneup, oil changes, changed the O2 about 4 years ago, don’t drive it that much, about 10K miles per year. I had to get it towed twice now, and don’t feel comfortable driving it anywhere. These are the symptoms, and looking for some advice on what may need repairs. The engine runs well for about 45-55 minutes, then it just stalls out, twice on the road, and now twice in the back yard while running. Ran it at fast idle about 1100 rpm and ran fine for the first 30-40 minutes, then I had to go into the house, by the time I got back out to the car, it had stalled ? It starts up real fine after sitting over nite ? And I try to start it every morning. The next time I had time to run it, ran it at very high rpm with my foot on the gas pedal, guessimate the revs were about 2000-3000 rpm, and sat there, reading a book. Sure enough in about 45-50 minutes of very high revs, the engine stalls ! I seem to be getting fuel to the engine, as I had by pass the fuel pump relays by shorting the svc connector with a wire loop and the hose going from the fuel filter to the fuel rail stiffin up, and I can hear the return pressure, also after it stalled, I checked for spark, and best that I could see, there was spark there at the end of the pulled spark plug cable. Appreciate any help or advice you can give, and thank you in advance for your replies.

This could be the shaft bushing wearing out in the distributor. Pull the distributor cap off, rotate the engine until one of the vanes lines up with the line on the ignitor. Use a 0.010" feeler gauge in the gap between the vane and the ignitor. It should just fit with a little drag. Now push the shaft away from the ignitor and see if the gap opens up. If it opens enough to fit an 0.016" feeler gauge in there, you will need a new or remanufactured distributor.

If hte gap doesn’t open, then it is possible that either the ignitor or the coil is bad.

One thing that can cause this is a problem with the venting system in the gas tank. If the gas tank venting system fails, then the car will run and draw down the tank, until the vacuum at the top of the tank tank overtakes the ability of the fuel pump to pump, at which time the fuel pump won’t be able to deliver gas to the engine and it will stall out.

Some ideas: Does it stall more quickly when the tank is full (vs near empty) that would confirm. After it stalls, do you hear a strong flow of air going into the tank when you loosen the gas cap? Does it continue to stall if the gas cap is only on loose? (Note: Doing this could be dangerous, so have your experienced mechanic do it rather than doing it yourself.)

I believe I have the same problem, 1999 Camry, i am not sure it is stalling, so much as not going anywhere even though I am flooring it, pedal to the medal, it us just choking a sputtering and not wanting to make it so i pull over, hates stop and go traffic, loves long rides only, then it will go months acting fine, and then start acting up again, very weird.

Taz, in your case I’mm going to suggest that you start by having teh ECU checked for stored fault codes.

In both cases, I’d guess either weak fuel pumps bad metering (such as a bad MAF sensor or bad O2 sensor) or plugged exhaust systems.

Both of you need a competant shop for a hands-on look-see. A good shop will know how to test the fuel pump, check for a plugged exhaust with a vacuum gage, and check the sensors and ignition systems.