I got in my truck to run up to the store today and she ran fine at first but as soon as I got on the highway and tried to get up to speed, the crap hit the fan. First the check engine light popped on, which never happens, and then I just had no power at all. Even with the pedal on the floor, it just didn't want to go anywhere fast and it took me forever to finally get up to 50MPH. After that, I figured I better turn around and head back home to diagnose the problem. Once I finally got back on my street where there wasn't any traffic, I tried turning the truck off and back on again to see if that would somehow remedy the problem. It didn't fix it all together, but I did notice that when I was in Park the motor would rev fine, but as soon as I dropped it into Drive the light would pop back on and I would loose my power. When I finally got home, I popped the hood to look for obvious problems and I didn't see anything that stuck out. It was a little wet on the sides of the engine bay, no doubt from the pouring rain we've been having, and I though something smelled odd but I may have just been being paranoid at that point.

I let the truck sit for a couple hours and when I got back in, it started up and drove without a problem. I didn't drive it very far, just to th end of the street and back, but no Check Engine light and plenty of power.

I talked to my godfather/mechanic about it and he said it sounded like a clogged Cat. but it seems to me that that would make it run bad all the time, and not just while driving (unless the computer knows the cat is bad and is putting into some kind of limp mode, if that is even possible).

So, any ideas?

 

I jumped the test connector thing today to get the codes, and assuming I did it all correctly, I got three different codes: 121, 122, and 125. They're all related to the TP Sensor according to the book I have, so does that mean that it needs to be replaced or what?

 

You can check it out first. 121 can be low or high voltage from signal, but the other two are lower voltage than expected. You might just have a bad connection.

The Haynes manual gives the specs to test it. Idle setting is lower, with full throttle giving close to 5 volts signal IIRC. If you don't have a manual let us know and we can throw the numbers at you to test it.

 

I've been meaning to pick up a Haynes manual for it, but I always seem to forget when I go to AutoZone.

I drove it around a little today and it didn't give me a problem. It seemed a little sluggish at times, which could just be because I've been driving my dad's 97 for a couple days, but aside from that no CEL and no loss of power like it did Wednesday. It's weird how one day it works fine, and another it doesn't.