Toyota Repair: Intermittent engine stall on 95 Camry, toyota camry, fe engine


Question
Good morning, Ted. I have a 1995 Toyota Camry LE with the 2.2L 5S-FE engine. The car now has 108,000 miles on it. About a month ago, I received a call from my daughter that the car had died beside the road. When I went to check, the engine would turn over fine, but that was it. No indication that it was even trying to start. She reported a loss of power as she was driving, and then it cut off.  Plenty of fuel. As it was raining and late at night, I went back the next day to sort out the problem. Suspecting a fuel issue, I jumped out the pump at the test block under the hood, and it pumped fine. I replaced the filter, and tried the car. It started fine and ran normally for about 5 minutes, until it reached operating temperature. At that point, it would not idle, and would spark knock and "buck" when you increased throttle. When it cooled, it ran normally. I began to suspect ignition problems, since it was still damp. I replaced the plugs (due anyway), the wires, cap and rotor. Started it again and it ran smoothly. I drove the car for about a week with no problems. Just as I was congratulating myself, it died again; same symptoms. It may have been a coincidence, but it was raining the second time, also. I checked all of the electrical connections to the distributor, igniter, etc, and they appeared fine. Cool things down, and it's running again, but I'm sure that I haven't found the problem. Any suggestions that you have will be greatly appreciated. (By the way; great site. I read through your answers and found some good stuff.)

Answer
I suspect that there is still a problem with the distributor, the ignition coil is inside the distributor housing, these coils are known to crack and cause problems like this, remove the distributor cap,remove the rotor and the plastic cover over the coil, look at the coil very closely especially the epoxy filled area for cracks, look underneat the coil with a flashlight and a mirror for any burned  areas where high current may have leaked, it will be obvious, if there are any of these conditions, replace the coil, this is a common problem so check for that and get back to me if you still need more help.