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Car Not Starting


DurbenQuest
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okay so a couple months ago my car started on fire and i replaced part of the wiring harness where it was all burnt up around the throttle body and distributor. I replaced that part of the wiring harness with and 87 harness and i have an 89. most of the wires went together except one yellow and green 14 gauge wire. i figured that cant make a huge difference so i just didnt connect it to anything. Now today i replaced the wire that goes from the wiring harness to the distributor and also a new cap and rotor and spark plug wires. its cranking but it doesn't seem like its getting spark. i put everything on just how the old burnt stuff was on and everything. I am desperate now and im looking for anything else to check and if anyone that knows these cars from around milwaukee wants to come look at it and get it going i wouldn't be shy to throw some money your way! my cell # is 262 347 7111 and my name is alex if you just want to shoot me a text or a phone call or if you are interested to come out and look at it. I would really appreciate it! i Really dont want to get rid of this car especially after all that's been done to it and i know it must be something small.

Thanks guys!

 

Recent engine pictures here

http://s69.photobuck...owmoo/89_quest/

post-17183-127906070245_thumb.jpg

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so i was working on it and with a little bit of starting fluid it would start. then it would die right away. i messed with some vacuum hoses and i would stay running if i feathered the gas. but it was really rough. and i hear like a ticking coming from the injectors. i can hear them spray and everything but it still wouldnt make a difference. any suggestions?
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There are, or were 4 wires in your 87 ECU harness that were yellow with green stripe, one is temp. gauge and another is a duplicate temp. gauge ( but no duplicate in the 89 harness ) with, one is the CTS and the other is the secondary injector. What's the chance you crossed some of those up? And there is Yellow with blue stripe too and its difficult to tell the green and blue stripes from each other after they are old and been hot and faded.

 

There are some shielded wires that the braided wires go to ground and there is one that must go to ground at the ignitor mounting screw along with a braided wire.

 

You could have the same dirty ECI fuse link issue as other do or will eventually.

 

Have you looked at your spark plugs or checked your compression lately?

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compression and spark plugs are good i checked them before it started on fire. and ya the yellow and green and yellow and blue are hard to tell apart. and i know on the 89 harness there is one yellow and blue diamond wire. i found that the old injector plugs werent burnt up so should i just try to match them up and see if they work? but the extra yellow and blue or green wire that didnt have a match should that make a difference? or should i tap that wire into other matching wires?
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okay so today i found some wires that were cut short in the wiring harness and i connected them and still nothing. i finally had someone over to help me see if the injectors are even firing and they arent. so im thinking the fuel pump isnt turning on. where should i check for that?
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Well there is a fuel pump check terminal right by where the air filter sits. Its a single black wire wit a white trace black female clip. U can stick a test light in there and ground the other side and when you crank it should light up showing the fuel pump is getting power and if you run a wire from that black female clip to the positive terminal it will actually turn the fuel pump on and you can hear gas flowing right through the throttle body. Also did you pull a plug and check for spark? if not do so. What I did to check my injectors I took the lil alligator LED that was made to check ecu codes and back probed my injector clips and itll light up everytime the Injector fires. One more thing I noticed that your IC pipe isnt on in the picture, these cars are closed air systems and all intercooler pipes need to be connected and tight for it to run (not sure if you know just throwing it out there).
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i actually didnt know everything you said! haha but that helps a lot. i know a bit about cars but im still learning. and i will give this a try in a minute and ill let you know how it goes. first before i put the ic pipe on i will check the fuel pump
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Ecu controls the injectors theres also a relay behind the glove box Im not sure I really cant remember if that controls injectors or not. umm. u can goto starquestgarage.com and check the electrical in the service manual to make sure the injectors are wired correctly. Also what ecu are you using? still the same one if so chances are if wires melted together from a fire that ecu would be useless to you being as wires probably crossed and fudged some stuff up. Did you check for spark? those injectors dont fire until it sees tach signal but actually the fuel pump wont run until it sees tach signal either unless you jump it. Is the needle on the tachometer bouncing? If you dont have spark start aiming towards your knock box, If you do start looking through wiring, and lean towards your relay or ecu. 87 88 89 ecus are interchangable. but not 5speed and auto.
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i will check for a relay tomorrow. As for the injectors i am almost positive they are wired correctly. I am using the stock ecu. and i replaced all the wires i could see that were melted together. i do have spark. I do have an aftermarket tach and there is a wire that has a metal nipple on it that looks like it is for that but idk where to plug it in. and i can here my fuel pump working and i tested it with a test light. i just dont want to go out and buy stuff i might not need since im tight on mulah
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question tho. i want to take my injectors out and the 2 p3 screws wont budge. any good way to get them out w.o destroying them? i used bolt defreezer and stuff but still wouldnt budge

 

those screws strip really easy. i had good luck with an 1/4 extension with a fat phillips bit on a rachet. you can put a lot of down pressure on them that way. one of mine was pretty stripped and this got them out.

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your looking at this back wards,, you first have to have spark at the coil,, in order to have the injs fire,,

so first check the ign system,, once you have ign spark,, then work on the inj pluseing

 

and stop trying to make it complicate'd it's as simple as it can get,,

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Shelby's right. Your fuel pump has a safety feature that only lets it run when it ECU sees spark. It's an 89? As uncommon as it is for the later knock boxes to die, I'd look there first. Maybe at it's connections and ground. From there. how are your wires to the distributor? If they're all fine, there's a pickup coil inside that sometimes goes bad. Might also try hooking up that fuel pump test port and crank the motor to see if it fires up. That'd tell you for sure if it was a fuel or spark issue.
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The ECI fuse link still has to be good for the ECU to work. If the primary was pulsing while cranking all this time maybe your plugs are wet and can't fire. Take them out and see. If they are dry you need to check the ECU tach signal wire on the (-) coil terminal. The ECU tach signal wire isn't the same as the instrument cluster tach signal wire. That blue wire with a white stripe on the coil is for the ECU signal, is it there? Did you replace any distributor wires? Did you understand about the wires in that harness that have wires the SAME color but are not for the same sensor and are not duplicate or spliced together circuits they just happen to be the same color wire. Use a volt meter, pull off both injector clips, turn your ignition key on and see if you have battery voltage on one wire in each of the injector clips. Use a body ground to check for that, not the other wire in the injector clip. If you have (+) on all four wires or on three and the wires back through the harness aren't fused or shorted then your ECU is fried or that one wire, since its one of those that is the same color as CTS and gauge wires then you repaired the wires and crossed them and must be traced back to the ECU plug and corrected.
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i have spark and i replaced the coil in the distributor along with the plug coming off of it. i have 3 ohms on the injector plugs. tested the fuel pump and it was turning on and i was building fuel pressure. and i can hear my injectors firing but not squirting fuel. if that helps at all. and when i crank my car my negative terminal gets warm along with the main ground coming off it. i know it means a bad ground and some of the insulation around the ground wire is melted. but im okay with that for now if it doesnt concern it not running. and how can i tell if fuseable links are bad?
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I meant the ignition coil not the pickup in the distributor. The blue wire with the white stripe is on the negative post of the coil and its the ECU tach signal. Testing a fuel pump with a jumper at the test port and seeing that it runs doesn't mean its running while you are cranking. How can you hear an injector fire while the engine is cranking?

 

Hold the throttle open and spray some starter fluid in it and see if it runs then dies. If it does then either there's no fuel pressure or the primary injector isn't firing. If the injector isn't firing then maybe its a wiring issue or there is no power to the ECU or tach signal to the ECU.

 

If you pull the dist. out of the head, turn the ignition key "on", jumper the fuel pump at the test port and spin the dist. with your finger you primary injector will fire if the ECU gets power from the fuse link and that also tells you if the injector wiring is correct for the primary injector.

 

If it doesn't then you are back checking the fuse link, its right behind the battery in a flat holder and has others in it, they get crusty on their connections so remove it, clean it and the tabs it plugs to and follow those fat white wires that lead from the bottom of it back to the positive battery post and clean those too.

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