How about this for an odd one? Turning engine over leads to non starter. Please read!

Hello

so last night i planned to fit a new set of V belts to the 3.5 as the steering and alternator were both worn/slipping

i struggled to get the steering and alternator belts off as there was not quite enough useable adjustment - the water pump belt was fine.

anyway, i tugged them off and all was well. pleasingly all three water pump, pas pump and alternator bearings felt good. happy days

so when coming to get the new belts on, it was a bit tight. i did the pas first, then tightened it up. then alternator, and tightened it up, then slipped on the water pump and set the tensioner.

as above, the pas and alternator were tight, so i used the common method of getting it as far as i could then just kicking the engine over on the starter in short bursts to get the belts to jump on. this worked just fine.

i set everything right, went to start up and it just turned over and chugged a bit.

i dont know if you remmeber about 6 months ago i posted up where i could not get the car to start at all, after spendinga day at a pay n play figuring out why it suddenly started missing and then cut out and wouldnt run with various dizzy caps/ arms etc.

it eventually turned out that the timing had gone out by about 20 degrees - set it back up and its been wonderful ever since.

last night it was exactly the same sound - so i immediatly grabbed the strobe light, but cranking it over the timing looked ok i think (hard to tell)

i loosened the dizzy and moved it to all positions whilst my mate cranked.

with no result i started going through all the checks, and found no problem.

we resorted to more cranking, and after a minute or so of cranking i started to catch at a dizzy position. i fine tuned it til it started to fire better and better, and then it fairly quickly cam back to life.

i set the timing to 6 degrees with the strobe (seems to like a little more advance these days) and it was absolutely bang on again, no smoke, no noises, just fine.

SO can anyone explain what could have happened there? why a bit of kicking over resulted in a car which wouldnt run for 5 minutes? i mean im talking a few stabs of the starter - not anything that could have flooded it. the bloody thing runs wet through in petrol anyway!

any ideas gurus?

cheers!

99% sure its flooding which caused the non-start. Did you take a note of where the timing was originally, and once you'd adjusted it several times to a position it ran in, was it back in the same position?

I don't know the details of your V8 but most fuel injection systems squirt a little extra fuel during cranking to assist a cold start. So, with 3-4 applications of the starter motor without acutally starting, is easily enough to flood it. Carb engines are even more prone to this than fuel injection. "Runs wet through in petrol" isn't really a definite measure of mixture. Any petrol engine will only run within a certain band of mixture, from approx 11:1 to 18:1, either side of this and it will not be able to light the air:fuel mixture.

Was probably that then - a relief!!

Yes, the timing, although not exactly sure, appeared to be right even when it wouldn't run.

I did pull a plug and it was nearly dripping. I'm just suprised cos its never managed to flood/not start before.

Makes we wonder about that pnp last year now, but I took all the plugs out and dried them with a lighter, and it still wouldn't go - so that was probably a different issue, and the timing was definitely out that time too.

Cheers for the reassurance Paul, i did think of flooding but kinda thought "it's just not possible" seeing as it's an efi and it runs bloody rich when cold anyway.

It probably has a "flood clear" mode, which is to put your foot fully on the throttle and turn it over, if it ever happens again.

take out the fuel pump fuse, and wait till it feels like its trying to fire and then whack the fuse back in, that will work if the above method fails as well.

I've had similar today. Got a week off work, so though I'd do a bit of maintanence on the daily driver RRC 3.9Efi. Replaced belts and using similar method to get the belts onto the pulleys.
After a while of cranking had another look and noticed the dizzy had rotated slightly as the ignition module plug socket was just a little further around almost over the crank pulley. checking the nut holding the dizzy timed position confirmed it perhaps wasnt as tight as it should've been.
I've loosened off a bit more and rotated to what I think it should be at.....will go back to it later...but I wouldn't be at all suprised if the plugs have got well wet:doh:

Well there you go then! Would certainly be interesting to see if it fires up after your cranking operation...

Cheers!

Yeah. I've just left it for the time being. Will commence again tommorrow. I've got some new plugs to put in it due anyways, and the dizzy cap n rotor aren't new either.
So, in theory once these have been replaced I stand more chance of the thing firing back into life.
Ironically, the bobtail I was abusing on sunday, jet washed then left started up today lovely and ran as smooth as it ever has!

Sorry to butt in, i'm going to try this method tommorow also (to add to the big list of things i've tried)
I'm thinking how on earth could it just decide to jump how ever many degrees but if others of you on here have experienced this. I shall try rotating the dizzy slightly also (marking it 1st) as its been a week and a few days since i last took mine to a pay and play and its still not going ...

Sooooo....

Finished fitting belt n tensioning up...didn't notice before, it's got a britpart logo on it:doh:

I've changed the plugs. The ones that came out were black n dripping with fuel.

Fitting new rotor and cap to distributor, and promptly drop kicked the 'not-so-old-but-knackered' ****part ones straight into the dustbin.

Turned the engine over to TDC and lined up the dizzy at plug 1 firing position..

Then cranked over the engine....nothing!:doh:

Very slightly adjusted the dizzy position either way, and got it so it 'almost' wants to start. ie picking up slightly, just not quite catchin enough to run.

I swapped over the distributor with another I have that I know works (that'll be one in each motor & two spares!). Had thought I might be 180degrees out, so tried it, but compression at cylinder 1 and rotor position in dizzy confirm it was correct first time, so I moved it back again. Timing light flashes, but I havent got long enough arms to reach key and hold timing gun at crank timing marks at the same time!

I got a spark, I got fuel, just can't quite get this ruddy timing on it I reckon? :dizzy:

This is driving me round the bend. Didn't plan on spendin my week off doin this:wtf: have a whole heap of stuff I wanted to do on the other RRC bobtail this week, including welding on some hooks for straps, fitting Terrafirma steering damper and straighting track rod, sorting out door cards and looking at getting the front bumper winch running....why why why:Cry:

UPDATE!....just got it going

A little more tinkering with the dizzy position, and a lot more cranking (starter sounds different now...whoops!)

Followed by a **** load of black soot and a flame about 3feet long!!! (exhaust sounds different now too...whoops!)

Well...glad that's over....on with the stuff I actually wanted to do this week

Glad yo hear you finally got it going, before even repositioning the dizzy I couldnt get it to line up at TDC at no.rotated the crank just to make sure I wasnt going mad multiple times and it still wouldnt line up.
I even changed the dizzy with new amp etc and I actually get a much better spark than my old one (although the spark wasnt dim to begin with)

It got too dark and too cold, so tommorow will get it all lined up properly and then try again.

mazza7282 said:

Glad yo hear you finally got it going, before even repositioning the dizzy I couldnt get it to line up at TDC at no.rotated the crank just to make sure I wasnt going mad multiple times and it still wouldnt line up.
I even changed the dizzy with new amp etc and I actually get a much better spark than my old one (although the spark wasnt dim to begin with)

It got too dark and too cold, so tommorow will get it all lined up properly and then try again.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it was very strange, but glad I finally got it sorted.

When you say you can't get TDC on the crank. D'you mean when the TDC marker is lined up at the crank the rotor arm on dizzy doesn't point to where the connection for HT lead for spark plug #1 would be if the dizzy cap was on?
OR, by rotating the body of the loosened off dizzy you can't line it up where HT for plug #1 would connect? ...I'm thinkin u mean this??
If you do, line up TDC, then remove the nut you loosened off at base of dizzy, and remove the fork shaped clamp, then lift the dizzy up out to enable you to rotate the rotor shaft freely (just enough to line up). You wont be able to push the dizzy back in all the way without turning the engine over very slightly... Look at the bottom of the dizzy shaft to see what I mean...theres a slot type arrangement where the shaft engages with the oil pump. Takes a bit of jiggling to get it to slide back in flush.
Worth checking the oil seal o ring at the base of the dizzy too. Mine was split, which explained the small pool of oil around it.

Whatever you do don't drop the nut down the hole left when you remove the dizzy!....I did this once on a Lancia I was workin on...and it was a bitch to get out again!!:doh:

Hope this helps?

just in case you forgot.
It's easy to be 180 degrees out on the rotor. The crank does 2 rotations to every 1 dizzy rotor shaft rotation. (been there in the past too )
Cylinder # 1 will have 'just' completed its compression stroke when plug #1 sparks i.e when the rotor arm is pointing toward the HT lead connection for plug #1 if the cap was on.

Hope this isn't as clear as mud!


If you know all this, sorry to patronise.
If you don't, I hope it helps?

Hi,yea I've been out 180 degrees too b4,forgot that 2 crank rotations was 1 rotation of the dizzy arm aswell.What I meant is that I couldn't get the the dizzy to point to no.1 when the crank was at the tdc timing mark (your first statement) and this is even before i did anything ... I've already removed the dizzy clamp in prep to move it to the correct position (no 1) ,I'll do this when I have time and then try to get it fired that way,.juggling the dizzy if needs be. If no go,ill turn the crank and try again but I guess I'll know if I'm right or wrong as I wnt b getting as much compression.
(the clamp screw is in the car for now so I'll try not to drop it lol)

Good luck with it.
cheers

joe1972 said:

Good luck with it.
cheers

Click to expand...

IT WORKS !!!!!!

I was using my mates distributor at the time, with amp and my new rotor arm and it fired into life immidiately (i was almost spot on).
Then I had no oil pressure , fannied around trying to figure it out, maybe as my turbos off maybe its something to do with that, is their any oil ****ing out of anywere etc etc.
But the I realised that even though the oil goes into then out the turbo, thats just another part of the modified sump,the rest stil goes round as normal so no luck there.

Stupid me didnt realise the distributors were actually quite different, despite having the same part no.s on. My distributor was longer than my mates (mines bigger than yours :s hehe).
My mates one wasnt turning the oil pump (i didnt even know it did, thought a belt did it, learned something else new today).



One on the right is mine, and thats what I should have used

After messing it up and being 180 degrees out, then missing a tooth, then being 180 out again I now have it spot on

So absaloutely the timing was out, by how much I dont know, all I can say it that the dizzy arm was point at no 7. when at TDC and another no. (apart from no.1) before I took the dizzy out.

Decided to use my mates amp though as it looked in better condition

Sorry for stealing the thread