Car died on me.

[dimwitrj]

So my car has been running fine for awhile now, I'm over at a friend's house and they want to hear the engine.. so I rev the motor a lil then all of a sudden the car just dies.. and won't start again! The car cranks and cranks, but the charge light, brake light (e-brake was down), and check engine lights were on. Don't really remember if the charge light is always on when the key is on "ON" and the motor is off. I replaced my alternator a few months ago so I'm hoping that it isn't that. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be ? Oh, and later they were asking me if I revved the car while it was in neutral.. I think I just pressed the clutch in while it was in gear and revved it a lil.. Would that have anything to do with this ?

[Supra_devil]

i don't see reving while in neutral doing anything, i have done it many times.

i would check fuses first, then start eliminating things by checking for spark while cranking, fuel (remove a plug and see if gas comes out). if those are good then move on to otehr things, that i'm sure will be suggested.

[williamb82]

take the distributor cap off and have someone crank the engien while you look at the rotor. if it doesnt spin, you broke the timing belt.

[Tanya]

^ I was thinking that myself...does it crank faster than usual? I remember a long time ago when the belt wasn't tightened all the way, the engine cranked a lot faster and that's how we knew we screwed it up, lol

[dimwitrj]

I didn't notice it cranking faster than normal last night, but it might have.. so much was going on.. I'll have to try out your suggestions later since the car isn't here at home. :sadsmilie

[SilverMk2]

Timing belt is a good guess. Beyond that the important question is do you have fuel and spark? If you don't have both its not going to run.

[dimwitrj]

So yeh, I checked the rotor and pulled the timing belt cover.. rotor spun and timing belt still seems good and intact. Didn't have the right socket to pull a plug & motor seemed to crank at it's normal speed. Charged the battery up @ AutoZone and tried again.. no luck. :sadsmilie

[CJSREDPRA]

Unplug coil wire going from coil to dist. cap (unplug at the cap). Try cranking motor. Spark???

[Kevin Kisseberth]

Ground issue maybe.

[dimwitrj]

Ok, so I checked for spark by your method Eng.. no spark. I can faintly smell fuel so I'm sure it's getting fuel..

So I went to go buy a coil today, swapped it.. and there is still no spark. Could it be the module underneath the coil ? The thing that's ~$300.. Are there reliable modules that I can get from a yard ?

I miss driving my Supra! :sadsmilie

[RedP85]

The module under the coil is the Ignitor.

I had one die on me 10 years ago just like that.
Stopped working while driving, never came back to life.

The distributor is also a possible problem, as it senses the cam position to fire the engine...

[dimwitrj]

Did you ever replace the ignitor ?

[RedP85]

Had to, couldn't drive the car.
That was the first major expense on repair I had on the car after 8 years.
(not including normal wear items)

[dimwitrj]

Any way to test if it's actually the ignitor ?

[RedP85]

Try pulling codes from the ECU.
If you have code 14, that is it.
Read the chapter about EFI and Ignition in the TSRM
Unfortunatly, the Ignitor module itself is hard to check.

pick-up coils in distributor (http://www.cygnusx1.net/supra/library/TSRM_MKII/ig/IG_007.html)
and also (http://www.cygnusx1.net/supra/library/TSRM_MKII/fi/FI_001.html)