I know this is may sound stupid, and my experience with a non-starting
vehicle is with an entirely different brand of vehicle, but we experienced
the same thing on a V6 Buick, crank but no start.
What is the age of the battery? We had a similar problem with
non-starting but the engine would crank. We pulled the battery and
replaced it with a new one and the vehicle fired right up and ran
perfectly. Why ? I don't know.. this is the first thing we did to test
with.
I will admit that I don't have the solution to this other than the
experience we had. An entirely different vehicle, different wiring,
different electronics, and my thoughts may not be relevant at all but if
you are checking everything else.. why not check the battery too.
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Terrible Tom wrote:
>
> Pindell, Tim wrote:
>> In my experience with these engines the ECM itself is pretty far down my
>> list of things to check, however, its not unheard of that they can fry.
>> Codes? Can you hear the fuel pump buzz when you turn the key to "run"?
>> One way to check the operation of the fuel pump is to apply 12v to the
>> positive side of the coil. The Auto Shutdown Relay will cut power to the
>> fuel pump and coil if the computer doesn't see the distributor spin
>> during cranking. Sometimes the shutter wheel will break off the dist
>> shaft since its only held on with little melted plastic bits. I'm sure
>> you probably would have seen that issue if you already replaced the
>> pickup coil, but I figured I'd mention it anyway. Are the timing belt
>> covers in place? I usually ditch them at some point, but in this case,
>> if they are still present, you may want to remove them and see if the
>> belt is toast especially on an engine with this mileage. Have someone
>> crank while you watch the belt. Sometimes the teeth of the belt will
>> shear off at the crank sprocket making the belt appear intact upon
>> simple visual inspection. The timing belt spins an accessory shaft that
>> runs the oil pump and distributor. Strangely, most of my timing belt
>> failures on these engines did not occur while the engine was running.
>> The failure would happen on shutdown or restart.
>>
>> If all that stuff checks out, then go have an adult malted grain
>> beverage of your choice (or four) while studying the wiring schematics.
>> Afterwards, break out the multimeter, contact cleaner and q-tips.
>>
>> Tim
>
> I can hear what sounds like relays clicking from under the bed of the truck,
> but I couldn't actually hear the pump humming as I expected.
>
> I didn't change the pick up myself so I don't know... and yeah the timing
> belt covers were in place... the engine sounded weird to me when it was
> cranking over... almost as if there was no compression... I chalked it up to
> not knowing what a 4 cyl Dak sounded like when it cranked over... if the
> timing belt went bad and the cam wasnt opening and closing the valves, then
> that would cause the sound I heard. It sounded just like Christines engine
> spinning over with the plugs out... I'll go back and check things out...
>
>
-- Miles D. Oliver www.mmoliver.org
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