Electrical Problems?

[drakeg]

Lately my car has been having issues, where it just shuts off for what seems to be no apparent reason. Right before the car shuts off, the rpm meter starts to shake (going up and down a little bit). Also, it seems like the engine starts to stutter slightly. I'm not having any problems starting the car in general. There is no particular amount of time that I have to drive for the car to shut off. Some days I can drive for 15 minutes before it happens, other times I can go a few days and it not happen. The odd thing is that I can usually start it right up after it shuts off. If I do have to wait, I only have to wait about 10-15 seconds. Lately, it has gotten a lot worse. It seems that it drives fine the first time that I start it up, but once I turn the engine off and then start it up again, then it tends to shut off shortly after driving and will do so multiple times. This mostly seems like it is happening now whenever it has been restarted and I push on the brake while driving.

I am thinking that I have some electrical problems. Right now I am getting the following codes: 71 EGR System Problem and 14 No Ignition 1 Signal. Any ideas or suggestions would greatly help. By the way, I have a brand new starter and battery and the alternator is checking out fine. I had a friend suggest taking a look at the relays under the hood.

By the way, the car is a 1991 Lexus LS 400 with about 191,000 miles.

[jcrome04]

......The computer throws codes for a reason!

There apparently is a problem with your EGR system, and your Ignition!

If you just listen to the car, your life will be a lot more stress and headache free!

[drakeg]

......The computer throws codes for a reason!

There apparently is a problem with your EGR system, and your Ignition!

If you just listen to the car, your life will be a lot more stress and headache free!

Yes, but I was wondering if anyone has had any similar issues or if all of this information combined might lead to a more specific problem. Codes are great, but they only tell so much. Obviously, I have some good information to work with, but I thought I'd get some ideas from some of the guys off of here before I proceed.

[nc211]

A few ideas come to mind. First, check the wiring harness in the trunk, on the driver's side by the hinge. Make sure the wire isn't broken or lost it's insulation and touching the metal of the car. That's a little secret for many electronic gremlins of your model series. A little black wire. Second, it sounds like you're in need of some tune-up / clean-up in the engine. I'm willing to bet your intake manifold is in horrible shape. I bet the butterfly opening of the intake is probably caked with carbon, causing the car to get choked. It's an easy process to clean. I'd also be willing to say your egr filter is toast as well, which again isn't hard to clean and replace. I'd also be willing to bet the pvc valve is gunked up too. This is where I'd start first. Do some searches on here for "cleaning intake", "pvc", and "egr valve". You should find the right direction and instructions on how this is done. It's not hard, by any means. And the cost for the parts is probably around $30 bucks. You'll want a new throttle body gasket for when you remove it to clean it. You can buy a new pvc valve for like $5 bucks, and the egr filter can probably be cleaned and reused. I can't recall that website with so much specific help for his series "lexls.com?" or something along those lines? Can someone post it up for him?

You'll probably want some some new plugs and wires too. But before doing that, search for "seafoam" and learn how to clean out the top of the intake and valves with that magical stuff. Do that before replacing your plugs, as it has been known to foul a plug or two. Of these recomendations, the cleaning of the intake is the only one requiring any real turning of the wrench "gotta' get to it". The PVC valve should be on the driver's side of the engine, towards the front, on the cam cap. The egr filter should be in that area too, up top, easy to get to. The seafoam only requires you to pop off a line from the brake's master cylinder and set in a cup of seafoam. Start the car, let it pull the fluid in, turn off the car, reattach the hose, let it sit for 30 mintues, start it back up "it'll caugh and stall at first", then rev it hard. That's it. Pretty easy to do "warning, it'll smoke out your neighborhood, so do it in the country". The plugs aren't hard, just time consuming. The ignition wires can be tricky to remap, just take your time. Start with the plugs first though before buying the wires, as it just might be a plug and not the wires too. Mine, at 135k miles, had the original wires, just new plugs, and that badboy ran like it was new.