Elecrical gremlins...Dont get the van wet!

[psychedelicode]

So, One of the reasons I scored a free 97 all trac sc is because it had been sitting in my garage for a year in a not running condition. It would run great untiil it got wet, IE rain or snow. Even the carwash would instantly kill it. Well after a year of probing every circuit in the electrical I had decided the ECU was at fault. I couldn't at the time afford a $700 ECU so I let it sit. Come the day the van got transferred over to me, I sent it to the shop to verify my concerns. Turns out i was right but they were going to ding me for almost $600 in just diagnosis with a $90 used ECU that I found for them.(I understand these are a PITA to work on but that is still too much for me). Luckily for me (and i dont feel bad about it, I would if they had charged me a reasonable fee for diagnosis) the secretary accidentally hit $376 instead of $736. I went back out of kindness and told them about the mistake. I gave them an extra $100 and they were happy.
I have to say though, be aware of the shops, they put a huge hole in my exhaust so they could inspect the cat with a camera and did a half rear job on the welding up the hole on my brand new cat so im throwing second o2 codes. They also didnt fix two of the other issues i was having that i had asked them to, fixing a broken vaccum line off the intake and re hanging the rear half of my exhaust so it wasn't banging against my rear floor.

[TheMAN]

so for that extra $100 you gave them, they better make it right! otherwise, why did you in the first place?

[psychedelicode]

Well, they didnt repair anything for the extra hundred. I'm doing it myself. I just gave them the extra hudred on top of the mistake of 376 because I'm nice and felt that 476 is more appropriate than the 376. If I ever take the previa back (which will likely never happen, i'm fond of maintaining my own vehicles) there they will surely get the rest of their expected monies out of it. I am just subtracting what they didnt do or didnt do right from their bill.
And then its on to the new electrical gremlin of the day...Starter.

[psychedelicode]

So, Gremlin rears it's head again. It was rather warm here in the mitten and a bunch of snow melted. As soon as I hit a puddle on the right side of the van, It starts misfiring like crazy. Same symptoms as before and I'm guessing that it is the same issue that fried the last ECU. It is for sure not plug wires, I've tried two different sets of new ones to no avail and I always grease the boots with dielectric to ensure that no water gets in and they are easy to remove when needed.

[timsrv]

Have you checked the fusible links at the battery? There's a fuse box on the end of the + battery cable that gets corroded inside. Here's more information: http://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/s...-Previa-LE-AWD

[TheMAN]

I would start checking for missing splash shields, damaged connectors, harness looms, and wires on the passenger side.... water getting into the distributor, spark plug holes, or injector wires will definitely cause issues