I have an 88 STD hatch and was driving the other day. I was in 2nd gear driving normally when I noticed the engine was sounding weird and driving weird. I turned the radio down and noticed the motor was bogging down and made some backfiring noises. I hit the throttle and the motor died off as if it ran out of gas, yet it has half a tank of fuel. The car does have spark, cranks but will not turn over. It seems to crank a bit faster than normal, but that could also be in my head. When cranking there is a backfiring type noise from the exhaust. Looking through the oil fill spot you can see everything moving normally. When I cranked it my roommate noted that he could smell gas. When he was outside I put the throttle to the floor and cranked and it turned over for about 1 second and died. He believes timing has jumped a tooth or two. Looking at the cover it seems like an easy task to check the marks, but wanted a second opinion on this matter. Any help is appreciated greatly as this is my dd and I need to get it back on the road. Motor and car has 98k original miles.

 

May have jumped, but more than a tooth or two. It will run if it was only a tooth or two off. I ould just go ahead and check to see if it is off or not.

 

Click on the pic and after it loads,click on it again for full size..
Look at the circle that says Except Si...

Also check inside of the distributor cap..
Sometimes the srew comes out of the rotor..

 

Thanks for the info guys! I am going to check it out in a few after doing soem more reading.

 

Could be your fuel pump, sounds like the problem i had a few years ago...

Get your friend to turn the key to the on position... listen to see if you hear the fuel pump prime the motor...you're gonna have to pop the back seat out...(just the cusion) if you hear somthing sort of like a 1-2second "hum" followed by a "click" its not your fuel pump... if you hear nothing... you might need to check your fuses for the fuel pump relay FIRST before you concider getting the pump changed... it would suck to spend money,time, and effort doing the fuel pump when all you needed was a fuse....

just my two pennies...

 

Yeah I was thinking fuel pump, but he said he smelled fuel. When I started it full throttle it started for a secodn then died. I'll check the fuses and spray some ether to see if it is fuel related. If the main relay is bad or going bad, would it still get spark? I have a new one when my igniter died and found out it wasn't the problem.

 

if the main relay was going bad there would be no pwr whatsoever. and even when the fuel pump goes out...there will be a slight odor of fuel...

its just somthing to troubleshoot your problem...checking the fuel pump takes all of like 5 minutes...

 

Fuel pump is working. I disconnected the line to the fuel filter and it had a strong stream of gas coming out when the key was turned forward. I removed the upper timing belt cover as well as the vavle cover to inspect the belt. One side is tight while one side is pretty loose, not sure if this is normal. I am waiting for my roommate to come home as eh is a Ford mechanic to show me what to do to check the marks as I have no idea really. On the upper timing belt sprocket there is one white line I noticed also.

 

Also For changing the timing belt, is it necessary to remove the motor mount? Looks to be that way

 

Ok we are messing with it right now and we think we got it all lined up and still nothing. Am I right to assumer the number one cylinder is 4-3-2-1 as in 1 being closest to the drivers side of the motor looking at it?

 

 

Thanks fo the help guys and we got her to fire up and run. Turns out the rotor button was loose causing all these problems. I beleive it is off a tooth still from messign with it though

 

Sometimes the rotor coming loose
can be a early warning sign of the distributor going bad..

Excess heat generated by a failing bearing heats the loctite
on the screw and it backs out..

Look for a red dust-like substance inside the distributor cap
or damage to the inside cap or rotor..