TMaxxTim

Edit: This should go in the engine section...sorry its 4AM!!!!!!!



So I get my car back after leaving it at home for a month. I put on the new pulley tensioner, everything's fine.

Now I get down the road and then the car just dies. I noticed while driving it earlier there was a little bit of a vibration and that the engine didn't seem to have as much power but I thought it would kinda go away...apparantly not


I get down the road and the car just quits on me...nothing, engine won't start, I pull into a neighborhood and pop the clutch and the engine just keeps turning over but no start...nothing. Its not out of gas, I just filled up.

It did this when I got the car, due to rain in the sparkplug sockets and it fouled the plugs.

But my car has been inside for the last month, no rain or water possible. I don't know what I did or why it would do this after a month. The only other thing was the car had a dead battery (after I just bout a new one about 2 months ago) and I had to jump it.

This doesnt make any sense to me. Hopefully I can get the car home or to where I can work on it and pull out the back 2 plugs just to check them and then check the car to see if its getting a spark at all.

My car's been reliable til these last 2 weeks. I love it so much but it almost makes me want to get rid of it.....but then again I don't have any money to buy a new car....or any money to keep fixing this car!!!!

actuary

You probably have some other problem, but I had similar symptoms when I had forgotten to plug one of the electrical connectors under the hood, specifically the one that goes into the distributor. Make sure all of the connectors are plugged in and tight.

BLK13X

There are 3 things I can think of here...

* Fuel pump or fuel pump ECU? Could be gone.
* Battery terminals/grounding. Did you notice any of the lights dimming when the blinkers were in operation?
* Igniter. This was gone on my car after an engine wash. I had it air dried before trying to put it back into the car again.

TMaxxTim

I was thinking the last night, the first time my car broke like this water sat in the plug sockets and corroded the plugs. I wonder if I had a small amount of water in there, not enough to cause problems to begin with, but it never had a chance to burn itself out sitting in the garage for a month, then caused these problems.

The reason the car died last time is it fouled out the plugs while running on 4 cylinders.

TMaxxTim

Well turns out my timing belt is shreeded to bits. I think something from the pulley tensioner must have fallen down in there and gotten it, even though I know I didn't drop anything in myself. The next mission is to remove the crankshaft bolt and I can finally get the new timing belt on.

Also my last spark plug was COVERED in oil!!! I bought 6 new ones at autozone because I thought that was the problem, but they are Bosch and that was the only kind I had. I was thinking about cleaning it and keeping the NKG's because I know those are OEM.

gserep1

Good luck on the timing belt job. I faced the same dilemma 2 months ago when I did my belt on my 99 GS4. I just turned 90,00 miles, and I was in the shop doing my oil change. The engine was still warm and I decided to pull off one of the inspection covers on the engine.

I was ONLY supposed to CHECK the belt. I got it off and looked inside. I found the belt was still in food shape, and debated changing it then.

THEN, I did something so DUMB! Instead of waiting until the engine cooled off before putting the bolts back in the case, I tried to do it while hot. The hot engine caused me to flinch as I was putting a bolt in, and I accidentally dropped the bolt INTO the belt area. The bolt dropped all the way down into the engine near the small crankshaft pulley. I hoped it had dropped through and hit the lower inspection pan, but it was not to be. I searched under the car for 1/2 hour and culd not find it. That is when I knew it was in the engine.

Like an idiot, I bumped the engine over. It started, and the loudest SCREECH I ever heard came from that area. I quickly stopped it, and saw bits of the belt flying out. Luckily, it had not jumped time on the cams, so I pulled it all apart and replaced the belts, water pump. tensioners, thermostat and coolant.

Things are fine now, and I hope yours turns out the same.

TMaxxTim

Update:

Here's what happened. The car had the belt tensioner break and parts flew all over the engine, somehow something ot into the timing belt area either when I replaced the tensioner or before. Timing belt ended up shredding itself to bits.

I coulnd't get the crankshaft bolt off so I had to take it in. This was their analysis:

Crankshaft pulley - harmonic balancer, something wedged itself behind this and just crapped teh back all up and cracked it, so that needed to be replaced

Timing belt obvioulsy

Fan Assembly - with parts flying it cracked this all to hell

Here's what gets me, which it isn't the places fault and it isn't mine, its more my dads because nomatter how much i told him this "LET ME TALK TO THEM, DON'T LET THEM WORK ON MY CAR UNTIL I KNOW WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO!"

He went ahead and paid for a new timing belt because they didn't know I had one in the car.
The car place also told him that I should go ahead and replace the water-pump because its easy to get in there and do it, this is true however I spent 11 back-breaking hours and $75 of my own money 2 months ago to replace the one that had a small leak in it, this obviously didn't need to be done.

I'm sure it was a $150 part from them for the water-pump and probably about 3hours of labor tacked onto the final cost also!!!!

I just had to rant and get this out, but the timing belt was the reason my car wasn't firing....probalby also had something to do with the cylinder #6 spark plug being COVERED in oil, I don't even know how it sparked or think it did, so I replaced those with the Bosch plugs from auto-zone, I know I'll get some good NKG ones when I get back home, I just needed some to try to make the car run!