Rawmikey

Cruising along and BAM! Car dead. pulled over, tried starting. It sits and cranks but won't fire.. Got it towed to my garage tried starting. Still won't fire. pretty sure the electrical is fine, its a strong sounding crank. Next thought would be fuel. Put the key to accessory can hear the fuel pump kick on.

I don't know many people that could help so Im trying here. any steps to take to diagnose would help thanks.

ezone

Check for spark.

Rawmikey

Well, Little update. Checked fuel filter spits gas with on key turned to acs.
So its getting gas. Next checked the for spark, sure enough no spark. dissembled the Disturber cap, broke the router in the process Ran up to Orileys picked up and D-cap and Router. Still no spark.. Did some internet research found out the Main relay might be shot. Checked that, no burn marks Still clicking on with key turned. stumped now. Hope its not the ignition coil.. Never delt with one of them no idea how to test it.

ezone

Got a dwellmeter? Can you get one? Can you use one?
Test to see if the coil is getting triggered.
IF there IS a dwell reading of anything at all when you crank it, then replace the coil.
IF NO dwell reading when you crank it, then could be an ICM (igniter)
Or something even deeper.

Coil bad is very common though, ChinaZone had one when a "friend" needed one a couple weeks ago.




Got a helper with only 2 brain cells? Have him hold the coil tower while you crank the starter. If he screams and jerks, then you may have some spark. Next step is to see just how much spark can be had, how long of a lightning bolt it can throw.

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

^Oh man I really hope he doesn't get a friend to actually do that LOL

michael3n

Just throwing a basic idea out there...check your battery connection and maybe get your battery tested for free. Also check how snugly the actual wire goes into the battery terminals.

My last car did the exact same thing, and it turned out the wire leading to the battery terminal had corroded. No spark, just a clicking sound.


I know this will probably be useless....but you're throwing out money checking all the more complicated things. More often than not it's the simple things that will throw you.

anibis

I would check the coil like ezone said. Common problem for the age of your car.

ezone

Right. Might end up with a large dent in the hood.

Rawmikey

Would the Ignition coil failing, cause my car to die while driving? I dont have a tester, going to do dig in it now to see if there are any burn marks.

Rawmikey

Put the new coil in. took a while but it stated. Its idling fine but at about 3-4,000 RPM I think its mis-firing. Is this a sign of timing belt?

ezone

Anything is possible, but I doubt it.
Hey, it runs.
Did it have this problem prior to dying while you were driving along, or is this a totally new issue?
Now you have something else to diagnose.

Did the new coil come with the little spring that makes contact with the dist cap? (or whatever should be in there if it isn't a spring, I don't remember at the moment) Maybe you needed to swap it to the new coil?

Loose connections on the coil and/or the igniter will cause high RPM misfires. You may need use some pliers to pinch the spade terminals on the connections for the igniter. This is actually rather common, the terminals loosen up over time and miles, and when someone moves them too much they get loose.

HTH

Rawmikey

I'm having bad mis fires now at idle where are the spade terminals?

ezone

*ahem*


hth

ezone

Ok, this is the igniter. It is inside the distributor.
Do not replace it.
All the wire connections attached to it are what may need tightened up.





This is the female spade terminal. You would squeeze the curled edges to tighten it up where it slides over the straight male blade sticking out of the igniter above...




The problem I usually see is one of the 3 you can see when you pull the cap and shield out of the dist.
I have seen someone miss the male blade completely, and it was caught in the plastic cover.






Of course the problem could be something completely different. I just guessed at this because you were just inside the distributor.

Rawmikey

Well Mine looks like this,
I replaced that little spring from the igniter to the cap, plugs and wires. Hope this helps. Yeah, sorry I didn't know what terminals you were talking about. The ones from the modulator going to the coil, I made sure they were nice and snug.

ezone

Your pic is the ignition coil.
Mine was of the ignition control module (commonly called igniter).


I know I mentioned that little spring in an earlier post.......So, did it help?