I'm posting this for a friend who's currently at his mechanic

Ok, he just installed a new distributor cap, rotor and gasket on his 95 GSR. He put everything correctly and the car will not start. It cranks but will not turn over. He's checked everything we could think of but nothing helped.

Any ideas?

 

You have the order of the wires wrong- if not hook all the old stuff up and see it runs then. If so maybe you bought a busted part, but more then likely it's your firing order on the plugs. You can thank me later.

 

yeah, either firing order or check that the plugs even spark at all. pull a plug and put the wire on it and lay in on the valve cover. if there is spark its something else.

 

Alright I asked "eL" to post this for me but I just got home from leaving the car at the shop and lemme explain.

This morning around 11:00 I installed a new OEM rotor + cap. I put all plugs back in correctly (trust me I know the order by heart) and it refuses to start. It cranks but will not turn over. I take it to the mechanic and theres no spark. But we test the coil and all and there is power just no spark. Any ideas?

 

you really need to put the old stuff back on to see if it will start so you can narrow down what could be the cause.

 

he tried putting the old stuff on

 

Yup as eL, said I sat in that parking lot swapping out the old parts and new parts for about an hour and a half. That was like the 1st thing I tried too. Grr..

 

Dunno, did you leave the old wires attached to the old cap so you know for SURE they were in the right order when you put the old stuff back on?

Other than that, it's gotta be something wrong with the distributor that happened while you were changing the stuff, like a wire inside came disconnected or something.

If that's not it, then the problem is probably something else and is just a freak coincodence that it happened at the same time you changed the cap and wires.

*edit* oh wait, you didn't change the wires right?

go outside and double check again, at least for me anyway, that the wires are connected to the cap in the correct order. If you stand on the passenger side of the car and look at the cap, the order should be:

3 4

1 2

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Dunno, did you leave the old wires attached to the old cap so you know for SURE they were in the right order when you put the old stuff back on?

Other than that, it's gotta be something wrong with the distributor that happened while you were changing the stuff, like a wire inside came disconnected or something.

If that's not it, then the problem is probably something else and is just a freak coincodence that it happened at the same time you changed the cap and wires.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I'mma have to go with the freak accident. I was extremley careful while installing this stuff. I could understand maybe the new one but when both stoped working I knew I was screwed. I dunno if I find out whats the problem I'll keep you guys updated.

 

go out and look... do it

I don't care if you think you did it right, go and look again.

Physically trace each wire from each cylinder to each point on the cap. And I know this sounds dumb, but make sure the #1 wire is hooked up to the #1 cylinder, closest to the timing belt, and so forth. Sometimes people do have brain farts and make mistakes.

Have you verified that there is no spark by cranking it w/ the wire connected to a spark plug outside the engine? Do NONE of the plugs generate any spark?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">go out and look... do it

I don't care if you think you did it right, go and look again. </TD></TR></TABLE>
LOL I would if I could. I left it at the mechanic since I couldn't move it (but if I could move it there'd be no problem )If I didn't leave it at the Mechanic it would still be at my school parking lot so I decided to tow it to the mechanic. Me and 4 other friends looked it and it looked fine. We even have a civic with a swaped GSR park next to me we compared everything. Then me and those friends and a worker from the parking lot helped me push it down the parking lot from the roof level

 

Did you take off the cap and make sure that the rotor is secured correctly w/ the screw? Perhaps the rotor somehow isn't making contact w/ the buttons inside the cap. It could be either the center button (where current passes from the ignitor to the rotor) or the outer rotor contact and the outer 4 buttons (how the current gets from the rotor to each wire). Did you put your old cap AND the old rotor back on, or just the old cap still with the new rotor?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PatrickGSR94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Did you take off the cap and make sure that the rotor is secured correctly w/ the screw? Perhaps the rotor somehow isn't making contact w/ the buttons inside the cap. It could be either the center button (where current passes from the ignitor to the rotor) or the outer rotor contact and the outer 4 buttons (how the current gets from the rotor to each wire). Did you put your old cap AND the old rotor back on, or just the old cap still with the new rotor?</TD></TR></TABLE>
I made sure I secured the rotor on there (since it could only screw in 1 way). I did a variety of things. I tried the old cap with a the new rotor and a old rotor with a new cap, and even the old cap and old rotor.

 

Maybe you dislodged some other wiring? Like from harness to ignitor, or ignitor to coil? Pull anything apart at the wiring harness plugs outside the distributor? Loose that funky little spring on the top of the coil that makes contact with the terminal in the cap??

 

You posted that you checked the coil, what test did you do?? Did you check the resistance across the primary and secondary connections?? Reason I ask, is because once after changing the cap & rotor, my car wouldn't start. Turned out that the ignition coil had crapped out.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JimBlake &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Loose that funky little spring on the top of the coil that makes contact with the terminal in the cap??
</TD></TR></TABLE>

now that's an idea, I forgot about that spring... check that out.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by timmy8151 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You posted that you checked the coil, what test did you do?? Did you check the resistance across the primary and secondary connections?? Reason I ask, is because once after changing the cap & rotor, my car wouldn't start. Turned out that the ignition coil had crapped out.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Same thing that happened to you has happened to me. I went to pick up my car from my mechanic today told me the ignition coil had gone bad. I'm going to hope that it just went bad all of a sudden coincidentally, I can't think of anything I did that would of caused that. Anyway thanks for the all the help guys

 

ignitor anyone

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MSchu &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ignitor anyone</TD></TR></TABLE>

Damn, I was just going to post that.