Down to two possible problems
 

After 4 months of work I am pretty sure that I have narrowed my "car wont start" problem to one of two possibilities. I'm thinking demon possession or poltergeists. I am sorry for the long post.

For starters, it is an 87 turbo with very minor upgrades. Car wont start, engine cranks and tries to start without success. EFI and all other fuses are good. I just replaced the spark plugs (gapped correctly), spark plug wires, coils, and the igniter. Every connector I can find is connected and I have found no loose or bad wires.

The first time it refused to start, the only thing I had done to the car was install a rear lisence plate, although, it was probably out of gas. The needle had just hit "E" when I parked it last.

I have filled it up since. I was not able to check codes because my battery died from trying to start it so much, and when I jumped it, the battery wouldnt hold a charge. After replacing all of the items mentioned above, and adding 8 gauge ground wires throughout, I installed a brand new battery three days ago. The car started on the first try.

I drove it to a gas station and filled it completely. Went to start the car and it was completely dead. I jumped it and it started on the first try. I drove home, let it run for a while, and turned it off. The car refused to start again, the battery was completely dead. At this point I figured it was a bad alternator.

My father, who was an electrician, noticed that some of my grounds seemed redundant, and so the next day we removed some of them. We tried starting the car without jumping it. I have power, my lights pop up and turn on, my radio works, and my windows will go down and up. But the car won't start. Does the same thing it did originally. If we try to start it for a while we can smell gas, so I am assuming that it is flooding. Since it started and ran two days ago I am assuming that my fuel pump, and injectors are working correctly.

My current thoughts are that there is something wrong with a ground, although a friend of mine suggested the starter could be bad, and my brother (who was recently a master Toyota mechanic) said that it could still be a faulty fuel pump.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

I guess we'll start with some basics :)

When you have the start problem does it turn over at all or is there nothing?

Auto? Manual?

When you crank it does it sound normal? Does it sound like it wants to fire?

Put a paperclip between FP and B+ then turn your ignition to the ON position. Go and listen to your engine, do you hear the fuel running through the engine? Also listen to your tank, can you hear the pump (stockies are usually rather quiet) Does it sound ok or does it make strange whine noises?

Have you got spark? Pull out lead #1 and stick a plug in it and see if it fires.

How are the wires in your cps? These are common to cause a cranking no fire problem.

Let me know the answers to the above and we'll go from there :)

Sorry I took so long to reply, I just finished grad school finals week, this morning.

First off, its a 87 turbo, manual transmission with 120k miles on it. The owner before me replaced the head gasket and said they torqued to 75 pounds.

I checked my engine codes, and got a constantly flashing engine light. If I remember right this means that there were no faults.

I jumped the FP and the B+, and I could hear the fuel moving. I have not pulled the plugs as I have just recently replaced them, and the two times that its worked since it ran perfect, except for the battery being completely dead after I removed the key.

Currently, if I disconnect the battery ground and reconnect it I can hear a little electrical "hiss", and then I will have power to the car. The windows will come down, the air will come on, and the radio will turn on. If I try to turn the key on all the way, to crank the engine, the car just dies. There is nothing, no cranking, no power, no anything. If I disconnect the battery ground and reconnect it, this happens again.

When I get out of the car after this, I usually get shocked when I tough the car. I don't know if this is related or not.

I have not checked my CPS wires, I will search for this and try to look at them. I am pretty sure that I have a bad ground somewhere, i.e. a cable connected to the wrong spot, or a rusted connection. If anyone could help me make sense of the electrical diagrams I would appreciate it, as I can't read those things very well.

Thanks for the help.

-Micah

On a personal note, I love your car.

I had similiar issues on my 91 na.

I wonder if you have everything set to the correct stroke between the cams and the crank.

Your last post indicates starter motor or the thin wire going to the starter being the problem. Try this first; connect a wire (about 15 – 20 amp) to the small spade connector on the starter motor, there are only two wires going to the starter, (both are positive) one large red wire which is bolted on to the starter and one thin one that is connected to a brown shielded spade connector. The other end of the wire temporally insulate, you may find it easer to leave the existing small wire connected and just crimp or solder the extra wire as close as possible to where it connects to the starter. Turn on the ignition (make sure its not in gear) remove the temporary insulation from the new wire and touch the positive terminal on the battery. If it does start and you continue to have success, let us know.
I think the shock may be just static electricity some people are more sensitive than other to static. Try wearing cotton undies instead of nylon.

I have a really dumb, newby question. Where is the starter motor located? The TSRM shows what it looks like, as does the Haynes manual, but neither shows where it actually is located.

Thanks in advance

Underneath the air intake on the intake side of the engine all the way back onto the tip of the bellhousing.

2 big a$$ bolts and a small group of wires are attached to its' belly.

Your need to crawl underneath to see the connections.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b5...arterMotor.jpg

Well, I worked on it for a while today and it still isn't running, although I think we have ruled out some possibilities. For starters, we tried Bill UK's suggestion. We originally tried a 18 gauge wire, it over heated very quickly so we tried using an 8 gauge. We would get a spark at the starter motor end when we would do this, and then the car would die. If we disconnected the ground from the battery and reconnected it we had power again. Enough power to raise and lower the windows as well as turn on the radio.

We tried starting the car while jump starting it. The original problem occurred during this, that is, the car would crank well but not start. Once we disconnected the jumper cables, the car would revert to the problem described above.

Just as a reminder, when this battery was brand new, (about 2 weeks ago) the car started on the first try, but would lose all power once you turned it off. The car would do nothing when you turned the key, but if you jumped it, it would start on the first try.

While doing all of this today I did find a wire that had two spots about an inch long without any insulation on them, one of which looked burned pretty bad. I replaced it. I think it was a ground, it was located in the back passenger side of the engine bay and it connected the engine to the frame of the car. I replaced it with an 8 gauge wire because I have a lot of them.


I am inclined to think that it is a bad alternator, however, it should start when it is jumped if it is a bad alternator. Some sort of wire problem still seems to be a possibility. I think the starter is good because when I tried jump starting it cranked fine, it just didn't start.

Any ideas? Thanks, and sorry for the long post.

-Micah

Pull the alternator.
Take it and have it tested.

Disregard the post below, I didn't notice that you had mentioned the wire with burns went to the frame. No problem with having an extra beefy wire running to ground!

Where was the "burned piece of wire"? Take a picture of its location and post it for us. Insulation missing on a ground wire wouldn't cause you any issues whatsoever. As long as the ground conductors aren't severed, there is no need for insualtion on them.

It sounds to me like its a hot (live wire) that is shorting against your body. That would explain the unwillingness to start even with jumpers attached.

If I were you, I would jumper the car again, and while the ignition switch is in the on position, use your voltmeter to see if there is voltage between that burned wire and the frame of your car. If you want you can skip that step and jump straight to replacing the section of wire with a piece of similar gauge. (You don't want a piece of 26 gauge wire with a 8 gauge section in it, it looks crappy and will be hard to join effectively) If it is indeed a live wire that has been shorting against your body, your battery is probably now pooched because automotive batteries don't take depleting to emtpy very well.....

If that burned piece of wire is your problem, after you've patched up the wire nicely (I'd solder then heat shirnk or electrical tape your joints) the car should have no issue starting when jumpered to a heathly battery.

OK, gotta love internet troubleshooting!!! LOL

Motor is turning over...

Fuel Pump is working...

EFI Fuse good?

Ignitor is working and sending signal to the coils??? (should have constant 12v to all coils if the ignitor is working). Also help to plug in a noid light to see if you are getting pulses from the ignitor...

Main relay has been checked??? (you can usually swap this relay out with the a/c magnetic clutch, as they share the same relay).

Circuit opening Relay good??? (IIRC this uses the same relay too).

Timing Belt jumped timing??? (not likely but could cause this too).

Although in an unmodified car, these should never be issues, but you might still wanna check these, look at the neutral start switch, and the theft control computer. God forbid if a previous owner didn't know what they were doing wiring something into the car, these could cause problems too.

Just some ideas, suggestions to look into! I could come up with more but these are some things I could quickly think of. Good Luck!

I am currently looking at the TSRM online, and I believe that the wire that did not have any insulation was not a ground wire. Looking on page 26, there is no grounding point near where this wire is. This wire is against the firewall, a little off center on the passenger side. It runs from the engine to the frame of the car. So if this were a live wire and it was shorting out on the frame, this could be my problem? I'll post a pic of the wire later.

Problem solved, thanks for your help. As usual, it was something really simple. I replaced the clamp on the negative battery cable with a cheap one from walmart, and replaced the 8 gauge cable with a 4 gauge cable. I also replaced one wire leading to the CPS. The car started on the first try and hasn't given me any problems since.

Thanks a lot for the help.