Car No Go

[brett at ataxxia.com (Brett Van Sprewenburg)]

You could spend a lot of time jumping from thing to thing trying to  
figure this out, but you really need just a few bits coming together  
at just the right time to get the engine running.

1. Fuel - you can check this in an interesting variety of ways.  One  
way that is arguably the "best" in your situation is to pull each  
injector, raise the CIS metering plate, and crank the car.  I won't  
go into the details on how to do this properly, but you're dealing  
with gas, be smart.  Is the fuel pump even running?

2. Spark - a few ways and places to check this depending on how your  
diagnoses goes (same thing for fuel BTW if you discover a problem).   
Pull plugs wires, insert metal object like a screwdriver or punch  
into the business end, hold near the cylinder head while cranking.   
Sparky? Take the necessary percautions not to shock yourself or run  
over yourself while cranking the car.  You should take care not to  
combine this test necessarily with the fuel test above unless your  
into fireballs up close and personal.  Pulled the distributer yet and  
checked the rotor and cap posts?

3. Compression - are the pistons moving up and down in a cyclic  
fashion?  Do they all move, becuase it's a bummer if they don't.  A  
compression testing can come in handy here too, as it would help  
diagnose valve train issues.  Checked the timing belt yet?

Finally, all the above needs to happen at just the right time, except  
for fuel...who in the cheap seats can say what the 'c' means in  
CIS? :-)  Is you're timing "on"?  (distributing not walking around on  
you?)

I've been a bit "flip" over the procedures above, but I'm serious on  
the 3 things. Check them and hopefully you'll figure it out (could  
even be a bad ignition switch, causing spark and / or fuel to be absent)

I'm going to go with "spark" for $100 Alex, I mean Nate...

==Brett




On Nov 8, 2006, at 8:59 PM, Nate Lowe wrote:

> The car and I both just got a lovely ride in a tow truck to get home
> tonight. I stopped for gas, filled up, then tried to start her up  
> to leave.
> It turns over and over but will never "catch" and start running.  
> It's been
> hard to start lately, takes a good 5-10 seconds to finally start  
> up. Before
> tonight, I could try for 2-3 seconds, turn the key to the "on"  
> position
> (before it started running), wait a second, then turn it to start  
> again and
> it would start much easier the second time. It also started fine  
> whenever it
> was warm. I know the "it just won't start" symptom is vague, but  
> that's all
> I have to go on right now. Ironically, this happened while I was  
> looking at
> a GTI I wanted to pick up as a daily. Maybe she's just jealous.
> Nate
>