swampbrat Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 1988 gl10 auto awd. My son went to lunch and it refused to start , stranding him. Compression is 100,95,90,75 . The plugs , cap , and rotor are new, Timing belts are new. Fuel pressure looks good, Spark looks good when a plug is laying out but an inline spark tester looks weak on 3 out of 4 wires. I swapped the coil and pretty much no change. After attempting to start , the plugs were soaked with gas. If I pull the line off the filter there is no pressure in it until I hit the key. Could the injectors be letting an excess of fuel dump in the cylinders? Is it more common to have a spark problem erupt suddenly - neither one seems likely but nevertheless - it does not run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbone Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 Make sure the screw holding the disty rotor on is still there, or if the rotor spins. And I believe the engine is a EA82T. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 The compression sucks. It sounds like something jumped. Those number should be a lot higher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilesFox Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 do a search for 'timing belt procedure" and double check the timing marks. maybe you should replace the coolant temp sensors ,as when it goes bad, the car is difficult to start when wam. if it is a start then die, and no start again till it sits situation, there is a transistor on the coil bracket that can fail. the coil itself almost never fails. the injectors would not dump excess fuel unless the car thinks its old when actually warm, check cts. the fuel pressure regulator is after the injectors. the fuel pump runs with the key in the start position, or when the car is running, or 2 seconds when the car is frst turned on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted November 30, 2011 Author Share Posted November 30, 2011 thanks for the replies ! Yes it is an ea82t - wishful thinking i guess:D. The rotor is still screwed in place and spins , we put the spark tester on each cylinder. The first one had good energy - the shortest wire - all others looked weak to me. I will try that transistor off my spare car - I think a spark problem is much more likely than a fuel one. The suddeness of it breaking makes me think it would be a single point failure ( ie not 3 out of 4 plug wires or all 4 injectors ) thanks! any other ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted November 30, 2011 Share Posted November 30, 2011 Cant dpo anything untill we have squish fixed really. We have suck, maybe boom. Correct the engine timing first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted November 30, 2011 Author Share Posted November 30, 2011 The driver side may be a cam tooth off - hard to see. That is where the low #s were. So the transistor with the single wire on the coil could cause this? You are not speaking of the pickup assy in the disty then , right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilesFox Posted November 30, 2011 Share Posted November 30, 2011 the disty is an optical style with 360 notches on a disc. this sends a sgnal to the ecu. The ecu then sends a spark signal to the transistor, and the transistor amplifies the signal to the coil to break the field coil and indice a spark. it is possible that some teeth sheared off the timing belt and caused the disty/cam to be out of time. This would eplain the compression numbers. The lower compression is on the disty side? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quidam Posted December 1, 2011 Share Posted December 1, 2011 Cant dpo anything untill we have squish fixed really. We have suck, maybe boom. Correct the engine timing first. "Compression is 100,95,90,75 ." And the standard is 145 for this engine. I'm wondering if the excess fuel is washing down the cylinders. Probably is, but still, those numbers should be higher. Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 the lower numbers are on the disty side but the old belts look like new - no teeth missing. I am having a lot of trouble finding a new transistor. I tend to think it is weak spark problem because the ignition tester just gloed orange weakly on 3 out of 4 wires - only the short one was bright. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naru Posted December 3, 2011 Share Posted December 3, 2011 Can`t help thinking you are barking up the wrong tree re spark,but,I could be wrong. Judging ignition quality by spark colour is an old wive`s tale. The length of gap it will jump is a better indicator.Spark testers w/an adjustible gap are useful. In addition,the inline testers that connect to the plugs ground through the plug adding another variable to the mix.The type that ground directly to the block and have an adjustible gap are better,IMO. Briggs and Straton say: "A bright blue spark is best. A yellow/orange spark signifies weak ignition. Not true. Spark color determines virtually nothing. The hottest spark is ultraviolet which we can't see. Blue spark is cold in comparison to ultra-violet. Orange and yellow come from particles of sodium in the air ionizing in the high energy of the spark gap" The ignition power transistors are normally all or nothing. The injectors might be letting an excess of fuel dump in the cylinders. Might be leaky injector(s),(does the fuel pressure hold after shut down?), bad MAF,TPS or CTS. I would try starting w/each of the above disconnected alone. Dry the plugs each time. Those compression #s are pretty bad.I think it should still run though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted December 4, 2011 Author Share Posted December 4, 2011 maybe you have a point... the fuel does not hold pressure. I unhook the hose from the fuel filter and there is nothing there until I turn the pump back on. A pressure reg. comes after the injectors - right? It has to be a single point failure that ties to all 4 injectors given the suddeness of it quitting. I will try to find some time to work on it tomorrow. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilesFox Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 judging by the compression numbers i would argue the cam timing is off. perhaps the tensioner is loose. you should go through the timing belt procedure and check all that before determining spark or fuel timing, especially since you have compression numbers to prove something is not normal. search this forum or the intenrnet for 'timing belt procedure' and you will find the write-up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 I still say it is a compression issue. DO a weat compression test and lets see what happens. Squirt some oil in the cylinders. Repeat the test, if the numbers do not come up you have to look at it as some kind of valve issue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 I am pretty sure the ds side cam is a tooth off , the cover is broken so the notch is hard to judge - still - this problem started before the belts were changed. I'll try the wet comp tests this weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted December 10, 2011 Author Share Posted December 10, 2011 supposing my repositioning of the cam sets my compression #s right and it is ignition , would I be able to take the disty and coil off my 1985 EA82T and put it on the 88 or are they non interchangeable - the 85 does not have the same transistor setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilesFox Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 n othat wil not work being a mechanical disty with external knock control. but one frm an spfi will fit. the 86 and 87 spfi has a round plug, 88 and up have a square plig like the mpfi. you can swap the pictail from one to the other to match. the difference between an spfi and an mpfi disty is the spfi has a round shaft, and the mpfi has a d shaped shaft, and the mpfi has a taller cap and rotor. and spfi rotor and cap will fit on an mpfi disty, but not the other way around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 i do have a non turbo spfi disty laying around here. A friend said that the bad gas here may have ruined the injectors allowing gas to dump in cylinders - how likely is that - the hoses amd belts were pretty dried out. Meantime - I am taking offers on the car - would make a great ej22 candidate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 Turned out to be a bad disty cap. Was recently purchased but went bad within 6 months! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Turned out to be a bad disty cap. Was recently purchased but went bad within 6 months! nice hit, good score. so you still driving it? i had a new rotor fail (on an XT6 - same rotor as EA82T maybe) after a couple weeks/month too. the end of it just came apart...guess it too could have been disty failure if it was causing the rotor to tear up - but i seem to recall the rotor looked like the failure point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swampbrat Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 It drives better than ever now - had to replace an o ring in the iac to get the idle down too. It is currently fs here in Page Az. I will do more serious work on the other car (RX) after we buy our house with the oversized garage ( closing Jan 31st ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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