When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Yeah if you had bad caps and hard startup issues, it will likely be fixed because that was from overfueling caused by the bad ecu. the battery and distributor are separate issues, let us know how it goes with those.
Glad to see you still have the SC, Keifer...haven't seen her in a while!
Ha, I haven't seen her in a while either. Maybe gotten to drive it 45-50 days out of this whole year so far.
Originally Posted by Ali SC
Yeah if you had bad caps and hard startup issues, it will likely be fixed because that was from overfueling caused by the bad ecu. the battery and distributor are separate issues, let us know how it goes with those.
Battery seems to have lost a cell, not a terribly big deal since it's still under warranty, so I'll swap it out once everything else is figured out.
Pulled the Distributor rotor and it looks pretty chewed up which is shocking considering how new it is. I got a new Bosch rotor originally, but since the brand didn't seem to protect me from early failure I just picked up an Autozone generic rotor to replace it. Still won't turn over trying to jump start it, still makes a noise like it's just a weak battery and the dash dims even though it was being jumped off another car. Which is making me think that maybe one of the cylinders did get flooded like you guys mentioned.
So I tried to turn the engine over by hand from the crankshaft pulley with a big *** breaker bar I have. Nothing, couldn't get it to budge. I actually managed to break the crank pulley bolt free the engine didn't want to turn that much. So I tightened it back down and of course the engine did not want to turn over to save it's life. So I'm guessing one of the cylinders managed to get over full which is why it won't turn over when I try to start it.
So looks like the next step is to pull off the intake manifold, throttle body, and pull all the spark plugs and try to turn the motor again hoping it just managed to get full of fuel the times I tried to start it after it died on me. Don't know when I'm going to get to that because I have to go to Houston tomorrow and the weather has been utter **** and the car is still out on the curb, but I'll report back whenever I sit down with it next.
If it turns out that it still won't get any spark once I get the motor to a point where it'll turn over again I'll buy a new distributor and just assume the entire distributor assembly I have is blown. I'm not terribly happy with this car right now, but she's gotten me through some rough times so I owe it to her to get it running again. I'm starting to think mine came off the line right after Tabaka's SC3, it's nothing but non-stop problems and everything is broken all the time.
So got back from Houston two days ago. Had a break today and it wasn't raining so I took another crack at it.
Pulled off the intake, Throttle body and pulled the spark plugs. One of the vacuum lines to the Throttle body wasn't connected properly so I made a mental note of that but it probably didn't cause the problem since the last time I took the Throttle body off was December.
Once all the plugs were out I turned the motor over by hand. It was really difficult to get it going with my 24 inch breaker bar but it slowly turned and cylinder 6 seemed to have a bit of fuel in it. So I got most of the fuel out and put everything back together with the vacuum line in the correct place that was misplaced earlier.
Also I noticed a rather large crack in my intake. Don't know if that'd cause this problem or just cause it to run rough.
It started to rain at this point so I was hurrying up. Got the jumper cables out and attempted to jump start the car since the battery seems to have lost a cell from sitting around. No dice. It did the exact same thing it was doing before I started. There was a repeated clicking noise from the car but the starter didn't seem to be turning the motor at all. What could it be at this point? Should I look to get a new OEM distributor to replace my current one at this time? Should I consider replacing the starter again? Should I buy another SC300 and swap all my parts over to that one and sell this as a project for someone else?
Got the jumper cables out and attempted to jump start the car since the battery seems to have lost a cell from sitting around. No dice. It did the exact same thing it was doing before I started. There was a repeated clicking noise from the car but the starter didn't seem to be turning the motor at all.
I would try a new battery. Borrow one from another car if you can, so you don't have to shell out another $100+ on something that's feeling like a dead end.
I helped a friend recently with a similar set of symptoms. Jumping it didn't work and the starter clicked, as I recall. It seemed like it had to be the starter, but the dealership insisted that that particular car behaves that way with a dead battery. Sure enough, it started right up with a new one.
Really?
The battery is under warranty right now so I could just swap out, I just didn't want to do that until everything is fixed. I guess that'll be a job for tomorrow. I have trouble believing thats it since the car should've had plenty of current from the jumper cables, but i mean I'll try whatever at this point.
With a hole that size in the coupler on a MAF car, it should have been running like dog crap. Fix that, do new plugs, cap, and rotor.
Plugs were done in january and still looked great when i took them out today, rotor is brand new, cap looked great when i replaced the rotor, and the cap is only 5 months old. I'll see about getting a new intake, but that still really doesn't answer why the starter won't even turn the motor over. If I'm not getting spark the starter would just crank with no ignition, right?
you don't get the fuel out with a breaker bar, usually you pull the plugs and use the starter, you wont be able to turn it fast enough by hand to shoot most of the fuel out.
you should have tried the starter while the plugs were out then you would know if you had a bad starter or if it was just fuel keeping it from turning over.
alot of times if the starter had bad contacts you can get another start or 2 out of it by tapping it on the side with a wrench or screwdriver. don't hulk it and damage the thing, but just enough to get the insides to move a smidge and usually you get many more starts out of it.. unless its completely toast.
that hole in the intake will mess with the car badly, and could be why you got so much extra fuel and definitely part of why its not running correctly.
fix the intake, wrap it temporarily in duct tape if you have to but that is not a permanent fix... seriously.
then tap the starter hard on the side, you can do it from the intake area, if getting the same thing then maybe it is a bad starter.
it is pretty much going to only be the starter or the motor is flooded, I don;t think its power if you are jumping off another "running" vehicle.
I will say though that when you say repeated clicking noise, it does make me think its a power problem and the starter is just fine.
the repeated clicking normally comes from lack of power, even though you are jumping it off another car, and your battery may be ok, you can still not have enough power if you have a loose ground cable or something of that nature. I have had a loose connection on the positive cable completely have me running around trying to figure out what went wrong, it had the symptoms of a bad starter, but was actually a loose connection.
can you post a video of the noise, I know what each of these things sounds like.
Yeah I definitely goofed up last time. I was using my shopVAC extension trying to vacuum out fuel, I only got a little bit from the 6th cylinder, which I thought was good enough lol.
So anyways today I got a replacement for the coupler on the intake from the dealership. Installed that, and replaced my spark plugs anyways because I was already in there anyway. This time when I got down there, I chirped the starter a few times like you suggested. Don't know if any fuel came out because... well I was inside the car. Put everything back together with the new coupler on and tried to start it.
It was really grumbling and didnt wan to start the first few times. The third time it kind of started but was struggling to get past 250 rpm. So I kind of sat around for a while and tried to start it again and it kicked right up. I was pretty happy, seems like all of you guys were right, and I appreciate the continual help over the past 2 months even though I may have been a bit salty while ya'll were trying to help me. Cylinders were probably all full of fuel from the hole in the couple causing overfueling. I don't know if the blown capacitors on the ECU had anything to do with this or not, or if it was just the coupler, but Ya'lls advice helped me do it right even if I had to do it more than once.
So thank you Ali SC3, t2d2, Vrank, grumpi300, and salimshah.
The car is overheating now and not idling, but its been sitting for about a month and a half, so I assumed it was the thermostat, and the lower radiator hose was cold, so I'll replace that again. As far as the idling is concerned I'll try messing with the TPMS, it may even be that the ECU hadn't readjusted to the car yet but that's doubtful, I'd like to clean out the IACV, but the screws holding it in have been stripped to bits since I bought the car, I couldn't get it out this past December and cant get it out now either.
On the plus side the car runs and pulls extremely well. Lol. The struggle continues. I've got to go to San Antonio next week, so hopefully I can get some time together before the storms roll in again.
Just got back from DFW, and it seems like I haven't fixed ****.
When idling before it warms up its still spewing white smoke that smells like gas and it still doesn't want to idle at operating temp, as in the idle keeps decreasing until it stalls at operating temp. If I keep it in gear and keep the rpms up so it doesn't stall the temp gauge keeps going up and I assume it would overheat if I continued to run the motor. The coolant looked fine and was still pink from my last coolant drain and there didn't seem to be any coolant loss. Oil also looks fine so I highly doubt a BHG. Also since the ECU repair its no longer throwing any CELs.
Is it possible one of my injectors may be faulty or stuck open and just washing the engine with fuel? I'm kind of at a loss on this one right now. Also I have no idea why its overheating.
On an odd hunch I decided to check out my radiator cap which I purchased a year ago. I don't think they're supposed to look like this.
That little rubber surround was completely detached from the inside of the cap. So that may be what was causing the overheating. That's extremely disheartening since I purchased that cap brand new a year ago just so I wouldn't have to worry about the radiator cap going bad on me. So much for that.
thats odd on the radiator cap, haven't seen that one on mine before. that could be the overheating culprit right there.
another common source of flooding the cylinder ont he v8 is that the injector clips get brittle and the locking tab breaks off whenever someone touches it, and when that happens the plug can wiggle around and it causes overfueling and misfires and basically all those same symptoms, I would check the harness next, and then the fuel injectors if still doing it. sometimes over the years the e85 can mess with the seals on original injectors, and they should be replaced every couple decades or so.
sending injectors off for cleaning on an old car with these sort of symptoms is never a bad idea and you usually get to find out if they were bad or not (injector flow charts normally have before and after readings), or pick up a spare set and have them cleaned to save downtime, but then you wont know if any of yours were bad until you get those tested/cleaned.
thats odd on the radiator cap, haven't seen that one on mine before. that could be the overheating culprit right there.
another common source of flooding the cylinder ont he v8 is that the injector clips get brittle and the locking tab breaks off whenever someone touches it, and when that happens the plug can wiggle around and it causes overfueling and misfires and basically all those same symptoms, I would check the harness next, and then the fuel injectors if still doing it. sometimes over the years the e85 can mess with the seals on original injectors, and they should be replaced every couple decades or so.
sending injectors off for cleaning on an old car with these sort of symptoms is never a bad idea and you usually get to find out if they were bad or not (injector flow charts normally have before and after readings), or pick up a spare set and have them cleaned to save downtime, but then you wont know if any of yours were bad until you get those tested/cleaned.
By checking the harness do you mean checking where the wires plug into the ECU or are you referring to something else?
06-15-15, 06:57 PM
