11-10-2009, 10:13 PM
The car has been sitting for about a week, and the moment I started it this afternoon it felt as the entire engine was going to break into little peieces.. shaking, rattling, stumbling.. and rather violently ! This went on for a good half minute ( not sure why I even let it run that long in that condition.. but I did ) Scared the crap out of me, I lifted the hood to look around, paranoid as I am now about the belts
I peeked at the timing belt "vista" spot to make sure it's still there, or that the balance belt is not by chance sitting on top of it [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif[/img] ,
there was no smell of any kind, gas, burning wires smell, no weird smoke coming out of the exhaust while the engine was running either,
I also pushed in the DME relay in a bit to make sure that's sitting firmly in its spot ( hey, that damn thing is responsible for 99.5% of the starting and stalling problems in our cars [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img] ), and then got the courage to start it again to see what happens. Started perfectly, idled smoothly, I revv'd slowly and then quickly to about 5k rpm, and also took it for a quick spin around the neighborhood. Ran great, no problems. Turned it off, started it again a few minutes later and again, no problems.
So I called Dr. Flash who advised me to check the plug wires and the then the plugs torque in case either/or might have gotten loose. Well, did not need to get to the plugs themselves because as I was pushing the wires in, starting with the caps on the plugs first and then moving to the distributor ends I felt one move in a bit and heard a click when it could go no further - it was number 4, the lowest one ( at the distributor connection end ) - so if I had to bet, that must have been the culprit. Not sure why it did not repeat the problem on the second start but maybe the warmth of the connection had something to do with it [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif[/img]
I'll let the car sit for another couple of days and see if the start problem repeats itself, but I'm guessing / hoping it wont.
Damn gremlins !
I peeked at the timing belt "vista" spot to make sure it's still there, or that the balance belt is not by chance sitting on top of it [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif[/img] ,
there was no smell of any kind, gas, burning wires smell, no weird smoke coming out of the exhaust while the engine was running either,
I also pushed in the DME relay in a bit to make sure that's sitting firmly in its spot ( hey, that damn thing is responsible for 99.5% of the starting and stalling problems in our cars [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif[/img] ), and then got the courage to start it again to see what happens. Started perfectly, idled smoothly, I revv'd slowly and then quickly to about 5k rpm, and also took it for a quick spin around the neighborhood. Ran great, no problems. Turned it off, started it again a few minutes later and again, no problems.
So I called Dr. Flash who advised me to check the plug wires and the then the plugs torque in case either/or might have gotten loose. Well, did not need to get to the plugs themselves because as I was pushing the wires in, starting with the caps on the plugs first and then moving to the distributor ends I felt one move in a bit and heard a click when it could go no further - it was number 4, the lowest one ( at the distributor connection end ) - so if I had to bet, that must have been the culprit. Not sure why it did not repeat the problem on the second start but maybe the warmth of the connection had something to do with it [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif[/img]
I'll let the car sit for another couple of days and see if the start problem repeats itself, but I'm guessing / hoping it wont.
Damn gremlins !
