some background, a few weeks ago this has started occuring, I will start up my vehicle, everything is fine, as soon as I am about to shift from 1st gear into second, I get "check engine" light and I loose power, almost like motor goes into limp mode, this only lasts for a few seconds, and I am able to shift and go about driving as usual. another scenario that happened just few days ago, I got the truck started, left it for a moment, and it kind of shut itself on its own, got back in it, started it up no prob whatsoever. all gauges are working fine, I just replaced alternator recently and it is charging as it is suppoused to, battery is an upgraded Orbital battery. I haven't noticed any loose wires, no new noise under the hood. I am very confused on this one, if anyone has anything else to chime in feel free and thanks for any info you can share. BTW could there be a vacuum leak and could it be causing this? also so far this has only happened about 3-4 times within this month

ok, sound's like a rough iddling engine. Will the engine Idle on it's low idle for long or will it start sputtering?

How old are your plugs, wires, dist-cap and rotor, air filter, fuel filter ect.
any other symptoms?

If your rig is fuel injected, check for cracks/holes in the intake. The exact same thing happened to my rig. If the check engine light comes on then there should be some codes that would shed some light as well.

How old are your plugs, wires, dist-cap and rotor, air filter, fuel filter ect.

Dude, if you find the cap/rotor, I bet that is where your problem is....

Michael :D

this stuff is funny. thanks for the replies. as you can tell from my signature it is a 97 Rodeo so fuel injection here. as far as posibilities, there are many, one of the things I was able to find on toyota forums, similar issue, clean MAF, throttle body, check EGR. will start on this and see what it does. it has been doing it quite a bit lately, at least two to three times within same day, so definetily something to look into. now the damn starter is about to go to, so another thing to fix (actually first major stuff for last three seasons/years 4wheeling). that is an excellent point about cracks, I will check and see if I can notice something and also check for vacuum leaks. motor is well maintained, not rough running by any means and I don't do water and mud stuff, not my thing. keep good suggestions coming. Winter is coming, as it is not daily driver I will take my time and wrench on it while it is awaiting new wheeling season in the rocks. Thanks!
Adem

well here is the update. this week I managed to clean MAF and throttle body. so far for the last two times I have driven it around it hasn't done it, knock on the wood. I still think this must be from O2 sensors, something that needs to be replaced as soon as I have money for it $52 per sensor times 4, ouch $$$$. I would really like to meet butthead who thought that 4 O2 sensors are needed, on most newer vehicles is only one, two at most. if situation changes I will update.

on most newer vehicles is only one, two at most.

Um, no.

For our wonderful emissions equiptment, two are required. Pre and post cat. This allows for both engine management and catalytic converter monitoring. If you happen to have two banks (i.e. a v-style engine) you get 4. At least one per bank, and usually there are two cats per bank, requiring two more. Only one cat will get you only two sensors.

The real kicker is that you are buying heated sensors. Someone thought that they needed to be heated so they would fire off faster (we are talking minutes, no hours) than the conventional non-heated. That is where you 50-some bucks a sensor is coming from.

Good Luck,
Michael