1991 Tercel No Start

[War_Wagon]

Hiya, so I didn't even get a full tank of fuel through my Tercel to baseline the mileage and it's dead! 1991, 1.5L, 5 speed, 225k KMs. Thing ran like a top. Then I started it one morning to drive to work and it had a totally dead cylinder. Got to work, looked at the plug wires, pulled a plug, pulled the cap of the distributor. The were all junk, so I put them back on to drive to the auto parts store. Now it wouldn't start at all, and smelled like it was flooded. Took a rental home that night, stopped for parts on the way back in the morning, and just installed everything. Still won't start at all! Cranks over fine but no spark. Was the suddenly dead cylinder the night before the sign of a bad ignightor or coil?

[cleanspeed1]

Cam still spinning big guy? Sure that thing didn't jump time? With the age of the car, you know that a lot of the parts in the ignition system have gone wonky.

By the way, I had been to the Vancouver area a few times and forgot you lived over there.

Time to just go through the old girl and make sure it's all good.

[cleanspeed1]

Just did a quick search about your engine ( you have a 3E 1.5L, right? ). Apparently these engines have valve guide/seal issues, pop the oil control rings and carbon up quite a bit which leads to rough idling, stalling, blah, blah, blah.

Maybe it's time to go deeper. Compression check, leakdown test. After 225k she may need something. Then again, maybe not. Hope for the best, prepare for a rebuild.

[War_Wagon]

Hey pal, ya I won't be doing a rebuild on this one, just picked it up for a cheap driver til the weather cleared up enough to bring the Insight back out. I don't think it's the timing belt, it looked pretty fresh when I pulled the inspection cover off, and usually when something slips the belt it sounds weird when it's turning over, you know that "that's not good" sound where it turns over unevenly. This doesn't do that.

I'd put money on it that its electrical. Car ran great, I shut it off, next morning it had a dead hole, a few hours later it won't even try to fire. I would think a dieing coil would make it run crappy on all cylinders before it died completely, though the ignition system (plugs, cap wires) were all so tired there could have been one cylinder that was borderline until the coil got passed a certain point, so it couldnt fire that cylinder on it's way out. It could be the igniter too, but I have no idea what they do when they fail. If they are like a GM HEI module they work great right until they fail completely. I just don't want to go throwing parts at it (moreso anyway), so I will see if I can borrow a coil somewhere and see if it helps.

And next time you are in town let me know, I can give you a tour of the fleet!

[jakobnev]

Sudden death does indicate it was a failure in a semiconductor component i.e. the igniter.

The misfire in one cylinder could have been caused by other things but contributed to the igniter dying - when the field collapses in the coil, the energy has to go some where, and without a spark the igniter gets a little more of it.

[War_Wagon]

Ok thank you jakobnev. Looks like I will head to the pick-a-part yard on the weekend to find a used igniter if I can't find one to borrow for testing.