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Starting dilema

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xtascox

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Sep 13, 2007
Messages
1,132
Location
Philadelphia, PA
First off, thank you to everyone that helped me out whether in person or on these forums since my car refused to start Christmas morning. Sadly the problem still pertains but it is now somewhat different from before I replaced the starter.

The car now turns over(sort of). I'll turn the key and it will spin up and than slow down, spin up and then slow down, etc, etc. Usually after a few turns, when I get out of the car I can smell what smells almost like hot dust(oooOO that smell, can't you smell that smell). So I'm thinking, from all these attempts to start it there should at least be some evidence of fuel in the cylinder. I pulled the #4 plug and peered down into the cylinder and saw nothing but the slight carbon on the piston. "Hmm" I said, so I left the plug out and turned the engine again thinking there had to be some sort of evidence of fuel in the cylinder since there was no plug there to ignite it, but still nothing that I could see. Putting together the dry hot dust smell after a few turns and the lack of evidence of fuel in the cylinders makes me believe that... wait for it,.. there is no fuel getting to the cylinders!!! Now for a few things to note:

I can hear the fuel pump prime when I turn the key to ON
I just recently over the past month replaced the starter, both valve cover gaskets LIM and UIM gaskets, and put in all new plugs and wires

I'll try to get a video of it trying to turn over so you guys can more understand what it's doing but, god dammit, its been exactly a month today and I miss driving my car.

So please let's figure this one out! Thanks in advance guys.

P.S. Also is it possible that moisture made it into the fuel system while the cap was off and froze therefore blocking the fuel lines?
 
Ice in the tank?

Ice in the tank?

Fuel pressure?? I've had frozen water in my fuel lines before, it was usually the result of condensation at night in very cold weather because I let the tank get too low. Ice forms on the inside surface of the tank, then a warm spell will melt the ice and viola, water in the bottom of the tank. The trick is to keep the tank nearly full to prevent the condensation and use an additive to absorb the water. I don't remember the names of the brands that worked best. The additive will slowly desolve the ice if it isn't too far into the lines and it isn't too cold but it will take awhile, a nice warm garage works better but be sure to back the car in cuz cold air sneaking under the garage door could keep the tank frozen. The schrader valve used to check fuel pressure is in the fuel supply line on the drivers side of the engine roughly in the middle of the area between the air filter and the windshield, pressure should be about 40 psi. Be careful you don't lose the little rubber gasket under the cap, it falls out. Maybe it's electrical. I just had the pleasure of replacing my fuel charging harness. It was so badly deteriorated that all of the tape and insulation fell off in some areas leaving a bundle of bare wires. I suppose that could do it, did the harness look OK when you had the engine apart? If the harness was deteriorated and you bent it around while you were working the insulation inside could have crumbled and caused a short..
 
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gstein,

The insulation wasn't horrible but it wasn't perfect either. I'm going to look over it better tomorrow and try her again since I added some dry gas tonight.

Aussie,
If you were asking me, I am driving a purple minivan at this point! It's my father's back up work van and gets horrible gas mileage even with all the seats out.
 
Oh ok I thought you were asking what I was driving in the meantime since I said I miss driving my car:shrug:.
Anyway I'm going to check the wiring to the starter today because it was a pain to get on right, and I think it may have worked it's way loose. The first time I turned the key after I replaced the starter it turned beautifully, and since then it hasn't been quite right. I'm going to see if I can tighten down the connections. Maybe I am getting fuel and I'm just not looking for the right thing. Or maybe because the starter wires possibly aren't connected right the injectors aren't firing. Who knows. Hopefully I'll get a chance to look at it later today.
 
did you check the fuel pressure at the schrader valve? That's the easiest way to test fuel pressure. Then check the injector harness for power. Since it was working then suddenly not working there has to be a definate point of failure. to see if the cams are working and the valve opening/closing one can do a compression test. IF you have those two things working then the last item needed for combustion is spark. Have you checked that? Of course nothing is as easy as it sounds and there are the crank and cam sensors and other sensors to deal with in the process, but they should give error codes. Remember when it quit working it was sudden in its onset / over night and it happened when you turned it off then it just didn't start. That is different that if it had been running bad or something then died. That may be a clue, I think your starter issues were separate, and yes electrical connectors need to be tight, and the battery needs to be charged.

Just thinking out loud,
AF
 
Aussie Ford said:
did you check the fuel pressure at the schrader valve? That's the easiest way to test fuel pressure. Then check the injector harness for power. Since it was working then suddenly not working there has to be a definate point of failure. to see if the cams are working and the valve opening/closing one can do a compression test. IF you have those two things working then the last item needed for combustion is spark. Have you checked that? Of course nothing is as easy as it sounds and there are the crank and cam sensors and other sensors to deal with in the process, but they should give error codes. Remember when it quit working it was sudden in its onset / over night and it happened when you turned it off then it just didn't start. That is different that if it had been running bad or something then died. That may be a clue, I think your starter issues were separate, and yes electrical connectors need to be tight, and the battery needs to be charged.

Just thinking out loud,
AF
Click to expand...

Could you give me a quick pointer on how I can check the fuel pressure from the valve? Also to check for a spark I just pull the wire and hold it up to something metal while I have someone try to start the car right? I'm going to go check the starter wiring now and hopefully it will be a quick fix since again, the problem now, although being a no start issue like before, is behaving quite differently. The car would not turn over at all before and now it is at least "trying" to. We'll see. Also there are no error codes, I bought a code reader yesterday to verify that. I'll go run the reader again though.
 
Well I tightened the starter wiring and even cleaned then connection and still no change. I also noticed that the "dust" smell seems to come from around the starter after a few start attempts. I really need to try to get a video of what it sounds like up and hopefully someone has encountered it before:shrug:
 
Checking for spark yes that's correct, or using a spark tester or induction timing light.

Two things, first I should have thought about it, you won't have any codes since you cleared them when you disconnected the battery for a while. Next thought is if the starter is not spinning the engine freely perhaps the started needs a shim? could it be too tight and binding? I'm just thinking about how my Chevy starter did that and required a shim to get it not to engage the ring gear too tight. I don't know if it is applicable to these engines. That dust smell is the motor windings on the starter and is not a good thing to be smelling. To me that means the starter is overloaded and drawing too many amps by working too hard. There could also be a short in the wire where it has rubbed through the insulation.

As for checking the fuel pressure that is where you would hook up a gage to. I might however, turn on the key, cover the engine with rags and then push the valve momentarily. Fuel should squirt out big time. Maybe put some tubing on it stick a wire through the side of the tubing and use the wire to open the valve. The other end would go in a collector. No actual measurement here, but if it seems to have good pressure then perhaps an assumption could do if you didn't have a gage. Best to use a gage if you have one. I improvise a lot, not always with the best results.... lol
 
Sounds like it's turning over fine. It just not starting. From that audio I'd say you either have no spark, no fuel or no spark and no fuel however unlikely. You need to use a fuel pressure gauge on that schrader valve on the fuel rail. If you've got fuel pressure and all the injectors are spraying then check for spark in all cylinders. If those things check out, then it will require some more thought to come up with some other possibilities.
Karl
 
98SVTC said:
Sounds like it's turning over fine. It just not starting. From that audio I'd say you either have no spark, no fuel or no spark and no fuel however unlikely. You need to use a fuel pressure gauge on that schrader valve on the fuel rail. If you've got fuel pressure and all the injectors are spraying then check for spark in all cylinders. If those things check out, then it will require some more thought to come up with some other possibilities.
Karl
Click to expand...

How would I make sure that all injectors are spraying without removing them all and seeing if they physically spray? I am going out to rig up something so I can check for sparks. I'm pretty sure it's gotta be the fuel though. I think after this many tries to start the engine would be flooded and I'd be able to smell fuel when I pull out the plugs. I'm not getting that at all. I'll try to pick up a fuel pressure gauge tomorrow or the next day.
 
OK I think I may have found what the problem is, maybe not. I checked for a spark and it's fine in that area. I think there is SOME fuel getting to the cylinders but not much. With all of the front plugs pulled I can smell fuel after I try to start it. I'm going to let those air out because I can't smell fuel from any of the rear ones. But here's why I think I'm not getting fuel. The red vacuum line that goes to the fuel pressure regulator(I think that's what it is anyway, directly beneath the throttle body on the fuel lines) is broken up near the EGR. I'm thinking this is causing fuel to casually dribble up to my injectors. Does anyone know the diameter of the rubber tubing people use to fix the vacuum line breaks?
 
Just to update:

I am going to replace the red, green and yellow vacuum lines with adequately sized rubber tubing to prevent any further problems with snapped vac lines.
 
Made new vacuum lines out of some rubber fuel line and bits of the old vacuum lines as connectors. I will be testing the injector harness and the injectors shortly.
 
OK! So here's what I went through tonight to achieve this wonder.

Replaced just the #5 and #6 wires with the old ones. No real progress from that, but it did seem to turn over a little harder. So I said what the hell and replaced all 6 wires with the old ones. Now she really started kicking hard but still didn't sound quite right. I sat there thinking and said 'MAYBE it's not getting air'(thinking about the little copper pipe cap in the IAC tube). I then proceeded to remove the tube to the IAC and got back in the car, primed the fuel pump for the hell of it, and turned the key, this time it turned over and started but immediately cut out. In true desperation, this time when I turned the key, the minute I heard the engine kick over I put the pedal to the floor and voila! She started right up and sounded like a V8
biggrin.gif
. It refused to hold an idle because I hadn't yet torqued the UIM. So I let her cut out, called my Dad and woke him up, drove over to his house with the van and grabbed an 8mm socket because for some reason mine always strip. When I got back torqued the bolts and tightened down the clamps for all the intake hoses. Then I started her up and she held the idle fairly well and I backed it out to the driveway. I neglected to mention that when she first started up I was so excited that I forgot to open the garage door and ended up filling it with exhaust but I luckily realized it quickly and opened both doors and got two big fans blowing out the doors. Within a few minutes I had a CEL so I ran the scanner and only found 1 code with was low TPS voltage. I've know my TPS has been bad for a while so I guess I might as well pick up a new one tomorrow since I've gotten 3 paychecks this week. My next steps are to replace the bumper cover and wheel well liners and I'll be able to take her for a long awaited spin. I let it warm up to operating temperature and held it at higher revs for a little while and I'm not getting any oil leaks near my broken valve cover stud so I'm hoping it will hold. If not it will just be a simple drill and tap to correct that. I no longer have any miss fires even using the old wires so I think I may just use the lifetime warranty on my new wires to grab a new set and then just sell them. I'll hold out for little while just to make sure though.

Well now its time to wire in my sidemarkers, finish my new grille and I better get to work on my new intake design before I lose interest! I will keep you guys posted if anything arises.


THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED WITH THIS ISSUE! YOU ALL HAVE MY UTMOST GRATITUDE!

Alex
 
Jeez, I wish I would have seen this earlier. My car won't start when it's below -10 f. The problem is the IAC valve (in my car). It's a very common issue for the contour. I left my car at home one cold morning too.

The next day I tried giving it gas and it started fine. The problem was that the idle was screwed up. When it was -25 f I had to play the same game. Mine is a manual so everytime I came to a stop I had to "heel-toe" the gas so it wouldn't die. Once the car warms up it's usually better, but when it's REALLY cold it has to warm up all the way before it starts working.

If it's warmer than -10f the car works just fine. I'm not saying you have the same problem, but it's worth noting just in case.
 
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