94 protege not starting
 

Hello everyone I'm low..... LOL

I have a 94 protegewith the 1.8 soc motor... The engine will turn over and it will sound like it wants to start but doesn't... It has spark and gas plus i just changed the timing belt and water pump on it.. Just to let you know it wasn't starting brfore i replaced those parts... Oh yeah the water pump was leaking... My ex wife was driving the car and it had over heated so my boy towed it back to the house for her... When i looked at the car this plug cam out of the raditor that is next to the a sensor that is at the top, right above the fan.... So I replaced the plug and put some new plugs , distibutor cap and rotor and tried to start it but nothing... Can someone point me in the right direction to what might be the problem? Thanks !!!!!

Clarify please, has it started at all since the tow home?

Was the distributor wet from overheating
and the coolant leak?

Confirmed firing order and rotary button position?

Best Regards

nah it hasn't started since the tow home... I put a new cap and rotor on it ... I checked to see if any of the wires were wet and i didn't find any... Oh yeah i hear a funny knocking noise coming from the breather when i ty to start the car... I was wondering if any of the sensors might be the problom or if it could be the pcm... I was going to get the codes read to see what comes up...

You said you had spark. Is it a consistant spark? I mean does
it spark during the full crank of the engine or just at the begining
and end of the crank?

yeah it has spark the whole time.... It sounds like it wants to start , I can hear it putting a lil during the start up .....

1. Clean all the Grounds you can get a wrench on, at firewall below
battery, below the igniter bracket, two white conn. multi-grounds, even clean
the bracket that the coil and igniter are mounted on, to insure a good ground.
Clean the gound point at the distributor and engine block.

2. Tightened all the air intake hose clamps, from the Air filter to the Trottle body.

3. Using canned air, dry out all connecters in the engine compartment that could
be opened. Take the battery compartment out and start opening connectors looking for moisture.

4. Consider replacing all plug wires with new set.

5. Take a look inside the Distributor and confirm no moisture at all. Any
at all will prevent a start.

6. Consider replacing the coolant temp sensor last. The I heard can cause
some strange problems.

Best Regards

7. Timing.

8. Did you confirm the firing order and check the rotary button placement position?
this is a very common problem.

yeah i have checked the rotor placement and the timing ... I will check all the grounds and the wiring under the battery compartment.... Thanks for the help.. oh yeah it has a new distribor cap and i'm getting a good spark from all the wires , i also put new plugs in too... Once it stops snowing again I will check those things out and get backto yall...

Sounds awfully close to being out of time to me. How comfortable are you with the alignment of everything when you did the timing belt?
Second, have you done a compression check on it? If it overheated that much, could have done head or head gasket damage. Do a dry and wet compression test on it and post the results maybe...

Crap, just remembered this happed to a friends
Toyota. After reading proto93 post, this came to mind.
It was a small break in the head gasket between
cylinder 1 and 2. Found by compression test.
Would not strart after overheating.

Headgasket repair was $300 total. Small local shop.

Hope this is not the probelm.

Damnit i hope it isn't the head gasket ........ I will check it out on saturday... I'm comfortable with the timing it was pretty easy to do... it is the sohc 1.8 for the cam the marks should be at 12 and 3 and for the crank it should be between 12 and 1 thats what the book showed me and i got the marks aligned right... But i will do the compressing check yall please pray for me ... Hey I don't know if I mentioned this before but when i try to start it antifreeze comes out of the over flow tube .... But thanks for the help and if any of yall are in the area nova falls church I would like to exchange numbers so I could call you when i'm dong the compression check...

low, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're pushing antifreeze out of the overflow when you turn the engine over then somethings blown. What's happening is the compression is not holding in the cylinder, but instead is pushing past either a leak in the headgasket or a crack in the head/block into the water jackets. That in turn is blowing it out the radiator overflow. I am hoping it's just a headgasket, but even at that you're going to want to check the head for warping. When it over heated, something gave. Post the results for the compression check. I'm betting you're going to have two cylinders next to each other that both show significant drop in compression. Make sure to do the wet test after you're done with the dry. Sorry man.

I will do that for sho.... How hard is it to replace the head gasket ....

Read the f-in manual :p lol

bunyan

:dj: So ...Bunyan goes to the trouble to join the
forum just to post this one and only comment.
Interesting, hey?

Low.. many times the head is warped which can complicate
things. As ya know, a local machine shop could help with this
part.

Some years back a friend of mine replaced the head gasket
on a his 1983 2.4l toyota celica. It was his first time with it and he
did a great job. He said the hardest part was was probably the
getting the head rebuilt, which he didn't even do.

As I remember he had a little install help from his father-inlaw.

Keep us posted.

Best Regards

Low is my cousin lol...

hahahahaha yeah man bunyan is my cuz ...... But umm cuz go fix that damn linclon fool ..... :booty:


But yeah I am going to take it off this weekend and replace the head gasket , I don't know if I will do anything to the head , I might just get one from the junk yard or i might take it to a shop to get it checked...

Ha haaaaaaaaa. Yeah the Lincoln will be worked on sometime soon, probably Sunday. I need a timing chain/oil pump on that bitch dammit...

bunyan

Well if you've done the timing belt, you've done some of the more dificult work to doing a headgasket. You have to pull all of that off again, but then it's pretty much wiring harness, fuel railes, exhaust and intake manifolds. That's definitely the "brief" version, but the point is if you can do the timing belt I'm sure you have the mechanical "prowess" to tackle the headgasket. Just follow the steps carefully in the manual. I prefer Haynes because they have more visual, but whatever your preference.
Topfile backed me up on the warping and he's dead on. If you're going to go through the hassle of pulling it apart, spend the extra $$ to have the head checked by a machine shop. I would highly suggest taking both manifolds to have them checked/resurfaced as well. The money spent is well worth the lack of headache later.

Keep us posted...

hey man it is the ex-wifes car she is lucky i'm doing it at all... But i will just put the gasket on and let it roll and if it blows up she will just have to get another car...

Well somewhere along the line I missed that it was the "ex" wife's car! That puts a different twist on it, doesn't it? Let it roll man... let it roll...

Hey I got it running..... I replaced the head gasket and she fired right up... I just want to say thanks for all the help..... Put i ahve to replace the o-rings on the injectors because two of them are leaking where they connect to the full rail.... I was wondering if the o-rings that came in the head gasket set are for the injectors?

Glad to hear it started!

It seem they would have provided both the grommet
and the O-ring, not just the O-ring. Did they?

The O-ring and Grommet both, as a pair, fit over the same
end of the injector.

Regards

Low,
The grommets are in the gasket set too. I put all that stuff back in the box...

bunyan

p.s.

Read the f-in manual next time :p lol...

Ahhh.... understood.

I put the new o-rings on the injectors and no more leaks... But I still have another problem with the car... I belive she drove it with aqny oil for a while so now the valves are tipping like crazy and the car doesn't want to stay started.. I believe i have a vacuum leak some where and thats why it won't stay running... But what can I do about the tipping valves.. The book said they are self adjusting hydrolic lifters I think...


Hey bunyan :squint fi

Call yourself blessed if all it was with the compression leak was the head gasket. Knowing that the car was overheated just before you started having the no-start problem would mean to me more than just a gasket replacement. While I had the cylinder head off, I would have taken it to a machine shop to have it resurfaced(also known as having them brushed). After a severe overheating what happens is that the actual metal of the cylinder head warps like this ")" instead of being flat like this "l" . It's too minor a warping for your eyes to see it but it's big enough for compression to escape. I'm talking about where the lower surface of the head meets the engine block's face. Had you taken it to a machine shop for resurfacing, not only would you have made sure it was flat, any tapping little sounds would have been corrected at the time since they always check for that and let you know if you need something like valves, or whatever. Since there could have been damage there due to the overheating or from being there even before the overheating problem, the tappin-type problem would have been corrected then and there. I wish I had seen this post before I did. I've had to do this three times. I did it twice with my own cars and once for a friend's.

manyydingo - we wnet over all that (read through the whole thread, you'll see why it wasn't taken that far) :)

low - it might be a vacuum leak. I mentioned before about having the intake checked/resurfaced in hopes they might find that before it was a problem. There is a couple ways to check though. CAREFULLY spray quick blasts of carb cleaner around the intake manifold where the gsket is between it and the head. If the rpms fluctuate accordingly, there's a leak. A local guy I know uses a small amount of propane around the gasket. I've never tried it and can't say I would off hand.
As far as the tapping of the valves? Could be burned valves form the overheat. The fastest/cheapest "fix" (I use that losely) is try the next step thicker oil.

Other than that I refer to your post ,"hey man it is the ex-wifes car she is lucky i'm doing it at all... But i will just put the gasket on and let it roll and if it blows up she will just have to get another car..." :)

Proto, you may be right or you may be wrong but one thing you have to admit: If you take off a cylinder head after an overheating, the next step is to take it to a machine shop. After all the work of taking it out, can you imagine putting it back in with the new headgasket only to find it had warped and the head gasket isn't enough to seal the compression leak? They charge about $75 per head here and I have also paid cheaper than that. For his/her sake, I hope it's what you're saying. If not, let's stick to the ex-wife having to deal with her own problems from there. Well, unless she's a real sweetheart and YOU were the jerk. :tear:

I hear ya dawg and I would have taking it to the shop if it was mine own car but yes it is the ex-wifes car so she was short ... I had to pay for the parts myself so she was saving out big time... Oh yeah she is not a sweetheart but yes I am a devil but she never knew that about me ....LOL But i just told her that she needs to be looking for a new ride .. Then i'm going to take the protege and finish the work on it but put I was thinking about putting the dual over head on it ... What do I have to do to swap heads ?

mannydingo - no argument form me at all on that... that was my first suggestion until I learned about the budget thing...

low - what's your budget on this one?... :)

I don't know yet i have to see what she is going to do first... If she is going to find another car and i get that one... I will have enough doe to fix it up right...