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85 BRAT, died-no restart, then does.


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Driving home from work today, I stopped at an ATM. Shut off the engine and went inside. Came out, started it up, and continued the drive home. Got about 4 miles down the road and it dies, like I shut the key off. Driven maybe 8 miles total sofar.

 

Tried a restart, cranks but no fire up and run. Pop the hood and do a quick visual of things.

Vapor seperator has fuel in it,

Fusable links appeared ok, and felt ok when pulled on,

Couldn't detect any moisture in the disty cap,

All wiring and connectors appeared ok.

 

Called Rich, and he came to tow me down to the End Zone Bar. I tried a couple more times to start it. No go.

 

Rich brought me home to get tools and such, and we head back.

 

I pull the breather cover off and work the throttle, NO Gas... WTH??

Check the anti-deisel solenoid for continuity and voltage, it's good.

Check coil for voltage on both + and - terminals, it's good. Even pulses during cranking.

Grabbed hold of the fuelpump to see if it was pumping while Rich cranked it, and the darn thing started up.

 

Cool,,,, but WTH!!!!??

 

Drove the remaining 20-22 miles home with no issue.

 

I had bought gas this morning, before leaving for work and had no issue on trip into work. Drive from shop to the ATM is 4 miles, so engine was nice and warm when I got there.

 

Kinda at a loss as to what to check, but going to do some reading and see if I can find anything on here what may help.

Really hate trying to chase problems like these.

 

edit;

BRAT is factory stock as far as engine/drivetrain goes. Only mods are rear disc brakes, cherrybomb muffler.

Edited by TomRhere
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True on the not having to drop the tank.

But it wouldn't be the 1st "full tank" I've had to drop to swap pumps. Really hate that.....

 

Wouldn't surprize me any if it was an electrical issue though. I've had many of those gremlins on this one.

 

Thinking I'll dig out a spare FPCU, and get another EA82 disty converted for this one.

 

Only reason for thinking disty is it's happened before on this BRAT.

Started it leaving work, drove maybe 500 yards and it died, no restart. Co-worker towed me back into the parking lot where I used the starter to walk it into a parking spot and it started. Didn't want to attempt drive home so I left it.

Checked things over the next day, found disty shaft had lots of play. Had brought EA82 disty with me, so I did the conversion.

When taking the EA81 disty apart, I found that the magnet in there had shattered. Why it did, I don't know.

I have since swapped it back to another EA81 disty, so who knows, could be it's dying too.

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I`ve had good luck crazy glueing the magnets back together.

 

They seem to work regardless of the glue as long as the fragments are held near their original positions.

 

I think they are dirt cheap from the dealer.Ask for 491987401 or 491988711(84 up) magnet set.

Edited by naru
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I`ve had good luck crazy glueing the magnets back together.

 

They seem to work regardless of the glue as long as the fragments are held near their original positions.

 

I think they are dirt cheap from the dealer.Ask for 491987401 or 491988711(84 up) magnet set.

 

Thanks for those numbers. I have them saved for future use.

Never thought of gluing that magnet back together. Would've been fun with that one as it was in numerous pieces.

 

Really thinking now that this issue was caused by the ignition switch going bad on me. I've had to play with the key a few times to get the heater blower to run after I've started the engine. Not every time, but it has been nessecary.

 

This morning, I braved a trip over to the local gas station to get some fuel for my garage heater. When I got back here and turned off the key, I had to play with it to get things to turn off. That was a 1st... Had relays clicking, seltbelt chime dinging, amongst other things happening, even things I don't recall ever hearing before. Don't have a spare switch here...

 

I did drop the trim panel under the steering column and looked at the connectors for the switch. Main battery feed was cooked fairly good. So that got repaired. I also made up an emergency set of switches to do a roadside swap if needed. One pushbutton, one On/Off, all nice and neat with color coded wires even.

 

We shall see.

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Drive to/from work today was uneventfull.

Actually think it was running slightly better. And the headlights seemed to be a touch brighter this morning.

No real great improvement on either of those, but it was noticable to me.

 

We shall see.

 

Issue probally won't reoccur until I'm in the midst of the upcoming Winter Storm, out in the middle of nowhere.... :drunk:

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