This happened last year, has been fixed and working without issue. I figured since I've confirmed the fix it's time to post something.

At 10pm about an hour from home, driving on the highway, my engine decided it didn't want to run any more. All of the electrical systems were working, but the motor didn't want to run even though it was turning over just fine. Started troubleshooting from my phone while waiting for a ride home. Managed to pull a code by jumping T1-E1, but sadly have forgotten what it was now.

Got home a couple hours later. Continued researching, found that it was most likely something in the distributor, either no spark or something else. Packed up some tools in the minivan along with some 110v work lamps and an inverter. Got back to the car around 2am and decided to see if it would start. It fired right up. WTF. From the reading I was suspecting something heat related, so took it for a drive down the highway and see what happens.

I did about 4KM of driving, making sure to bring it up to temperature and thought everything was working properly. I had brought a razor scooter thinking I might need to bring both vehicles back on my own and didn't want to walk back and forth. Drove the car about 500M down the road and it died again.

So then I setup the van with the work lights and tool boxes and popped off the distributor. Checking the hall effect sensors showed that everything was good. But my previous research still made me think it was heat related. So I packed up the van and brought the distributor home.



Got home around 4am and took the distributor apart. The distributor on my 1994 5S-FE actually has three sensors in the housing. Two wired in series on the bottom and a 3rd just above it. After some testing with the meter and a heat gun, it turns out one of the sensors wired in series was bad. After it heats up, the circuit goes open. So, it's garbage. Time to sleep.

Woke up the next morning and had already planned to do family stuff out of town for the day. I wasn't sure what to do, so while we were out I bought a reman distributor from Lordco and had planned on installing it that evening. At $330 or some such, I was a bit pissed that this stupid sensor was going to make me buy an entirely new distributor. It sat in the box in the van for the rest of the day. Got home that night and thought about the problem some more. Did some more researching and decided to go to the wrecker (pick 'n pull) in the morning.

Luckily I had already fixed a few things on my car with parts from other Toyota models from the same era. I posted about my ABS sensors that work awesome, and recently replaced the hatch/gas latch assembly from a Corolla. I was pretty sure I could either find an 5S-FE or something else that used the same or pretty damn similar distributor.

The morning came, I packed up tools and headed to the wrecker.



After two hours of walking around and taking things apart, I found that the Toyota 3E-E motor uses almost the same distributor, but the connectors to the hall effect sensor are different. Grey plugs vs/ four pin connector. So I picked up a distributor from some Tercel (forgot the year) for $25.



Took it apart and confirmed that it was electrically identical to the Celica setup. Everything was good, so now, time to make it work. Clipped off the old plugs and soldered and shrink tubed up the 'new' sensors to the four pin connector. Packed up the tools again and drove back to the car. Installed my new modded distributor, and the car fired right up. This time I had the wife with, so she could drive the van home. Luckily because the new distributor hadn't come out of the box yet, Lordco let me return it. So a $300+ repair was cut down to $25 and probably 6-8 hours of time on the weekend.