Hola,

My car stalled at the intersection of Howe and College Town, I had just gotten off the freeway, 70-something miles from home. It's getting fuel but no spark. It wont restart. Cranks, but no fire. TBI injectors are firing. I have a bit of tools and I'm trying to troubleshoot. I'm currently at my friends apartment at La Riviera and College Town, I had my car towed to the parking lot. I wouldn't say I actually am in *DIRE NEED* of help, but 2 brains are always better than one if anybody is nearby with free time and feels like giving me a hand =).

925-348-7722
Andy

 

I would give you a hand, but you are 1.5 hours away. That sucks that it just HAD to happen 70 miles from home. Good Luck and i'm sure someone will give you a hand.

 

stop being a wimp and go help him

 

Did you already try a jump/charge, or a tap on the starter?

I don't know if you are spending the night, or if I could be of any help, but I will be in that area tomorrow late afternoon/eve.

 

he said it cranks over fine, silly.

 

We offer "Free Towing" w/ repairs...

 

Whoops, I read that as no crank won't fire.

Coil/Diz issue maybe? I guess that's why it's big bucks to know how to diag.

 

Ugh, made some noob mistakes here kinda. I realized that I could rotate the dizzy rotor very easily by hand. Holy crap I realized, either my distributer is broken, timing chain is broken, gears ate each other up....after running in circles, including removing my distributer, I discovered the problem and it was the rotor was broken and spinning on the shaft, so now I've gone and removed my distributer without marking it correctly. Am I correct in saying that I can put it back in and have a 50/50 shot at it being right? I did not bump the engine over with the dizzy out.

I'm somewhat certain the root problem is with the ign. module, so I have one of these, just need to undo my great dizzy handywork..

I'm in a bad way, gonna spend the night here at my friends apartment who I broke down nearby and mess around with my car in the morning.

Thanks for giving me a call Trav...I may need you sometime tomorrow if you're available or anybody else! Of course my cell phone is dying now too...

 

im open in the morning till 1, pm me for my number if you need to call me from another phone.

you are correct you have a 50/50 shot as long as the oil shaft it centers on does not rotate much and cause you to be a tooth off.

 

Just turn the motor by hand to tdc on cylinder 1 and drop the dizzy back in and you should be good after you set timing.

 

If you can get to the #1 spark plug pretty easy a quick trick to finding TDC for #1 is to remove the spark plug then thread it back in just a half a thread or so. Crank the motor by hand (if you can) until you hear the hiss of cylinder compression, then just watch your timing mark come up to 0. Stop at 6-8 advance to compensate for your distributor advance, then just drop your distributor in lined up with the #1 terminal. Forgive me if you already know this, but it is an easy trick that has served me well over the years and never let me down. BTW I'm only estimating that 6-8 advance is the factory setting, I cannot remember for sure. I usually run 12-16 initial advance on my cars. Good luck!

P.S. you can rotate the oil pump shaft with a long shank flat blade screw driver if you need to line it up with the distributor. It won't hurt anything.

 

if street noise is too loud to hear the hiss, remove #1 sparkplug and stuff the hole with wadded tissue. It will pop out when you find tdc

 

LOL! didn't even think of that, good humor.

 

What's the worst it will do if I just drop in the dizzy and take my 50/50 shot, backfire through the TBI?

 

Not start. I've never seen one fire 180 out.

 

Mine started 180* off. Idled at about 100 RPM. Sounded like it had a huge cam. and it actually idled for a good minute.

 

Maybe I just didn't try hard enough. I would take the extra bit of time and set it up correctly the first time, but that is just me.

 

I would put it in. And if it doesn't work, take it out and move it a tooth. Took me 30 minutes to do mine 4 times and get it right.

 

Well I'm back in Concord, but my car is still in Sac. I'm heading back up Monday morning to use a AAA 100 mile tow back to my house where I can work on it in peace. It was really just too much trying to do all this in a busy parking lot with people walking by, trying to keep track of my tools, etc etc.

Thanks to all who offered help!

 

oh too bad, i have tomorrow off (sunday)

im free all day..

 

After running in circles for a few days, I've determined that the initial problem was the distributor rotor broke. It's "keyed" to only fit 1 way, well, that little notch broke and it could spin freely on the shaft.

 

So..... is she running again?

 

Yup, back on the road, however something still isn't quite right so maybe I'll tear back into it again. Seems slightly "rougher" than before at times, maybe I didn't get a spark plug on all the way or something.

My starter makes a horrible grinding sound now half the time instead of just cranking the motor. I think I messed it up when I tried to restart the motor after it "stalled" but in reality hadn't totally stalled yet. (I was in a panic in traffic trying to get her going again before I had to pull over.)

 

it is possible to have damaged the starter gear or even the ring gear on your flexplate/flywheel, only inspection would tell you for sure. As far as the rough idle goes; like you said check you connections between your plugs and wires, and also your wires to your distributor cap. I can't remember now if you were changing out your cap also, but you might check that out too. A cracked or damaged cap would cause it to idle rough. Also check your firing order of the plug wires and make sure they are in the correct sequence. I've seen it a couple times where two wires were crossed (I cannot remember which ones will do it) and the car ran, but ran very rough. Hope it helps, and glad to hear it wasn't any major issue.