Came back from vacation, went to pull the car out of the garage, and it won't start. Starter sounds funny--spinning too fast, and doesn't sound like it's working as hard as it should.

Pop the timing belt cover, the timing belt is there. It turns the cam and moves the valves. Check the cam timing; the lines on the pulleys line up with the pointers at the same time.

Check the compression. 90/50/50/60. Mr. Helms tells me that 135 is the minimum acceptable, so I do indeed have low compression.

The car drove just fine when I parked it. What could cause a sudden catastrophic loss of compression like that? Any ideas?

--DD

 

those are some waaay low numbers for the compression test. how many times are you cranking it?

 

did you hold the throttle wide open when cranking?

 

I did the test correctly, except for not having the engine warm. Throttle open, all plugs out.

I let the starter crank the engine over 10 times.

Trust me, the numbers really are low!!

What can cause this to suddenly happen??? The timing belt is there, and the pulleys appear to be lined up correctly.

--DD

 

This happened to me once and it turned out being the belt stretched and timing was off a couple teeth, just triple check that the belt didn't slip

 

Hoe long did the car sit for? Try adding a little oil to the cyllinder and see if your numbers go up. I would do a leak down test so see where the compression is going.

-Chris

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by white90rexsi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hoe long did the car sit for? Try adding a little oil to the cyllinder and see if your numbers go up. I would do a leak down test so see where the compression is going.

-Chris</TD></TR></TABLE>

do what he said.

 

The car sat for one week.

Just got the car back from the shop. They tell me that the only problem was fuel pooled in the cylinders. The injectors evidently have a slow leak, particularly when the weather is hot (and it was very hot last week!), and they allowed fuel into the cylinders. This washed the oil off the walls, which caused the low compression.

Doesn't sound right, to me... Either something is not right with the diagnosis, or the rings are close to done for them to lose compression like that.

They cleared the excess fuel, and the car started. I drove it home, and it seems fine!

So the car is OK now, but I am still a little bit concerned. I would re-do the compression test, but Da Boss has ordered that the next car to be worked on is hers...

--DD

 

sounds like its time for some injector cleaner? at least its running again

 

Time for some new injectors man. I've never heard of that problem before.

 

Glad you got the car working! When you get a chance do another compression test.

 

I will be doing a compression test again when I can, but as I said Da Boss says her car is the next to get worked on.

New injectors are definitely in my future!!

The low numbers are still puzzling. All I can think of is either the rings are really bad (but there's no smoke??), or I didn't get the tester seated firmly against the head. I couldn't reach the metal part at the end of the hose (those plugs are waaaaay down in there!) so I was just turning the rubber hose. Perhaps that wasn't enough torque to seal the fitting against the head.

--DD

 

DD: do another comp test. i was goin to say it was a headgasket cause of the numbers but i guess not.