QuestionOh gracious guru of all things Chrysler, I need your nuggets of wisdom:
My 98 Breeze 2.4L DOHC (130k mi) died while driving into work one day. Tried to restart it but no crank. That night, friend peeked in the timing cover and showed me belt wasn't visible. It snapped and wrapped itself around the crankshaft. He removed the cylinder head and thought the valves were ok. He replaced the broken timing belt, water pump, coolant, timing belt covers/tensioner (upgrade kit from Chrysler), cylinder head gasket, valve cover gasket, ac/alt belt, & p/s belt. After doing this, the first time we went to start the car, I had to stay on the gas to keep it running. When I finally got it to idle, it was not right. Additionally, I heard a noise that sounded like a cold air intake, eventhough I don't have one on this vehicle - which I attribute to the sound of a belt rubbing plastic.
While started, we took it for a short test drive around the block. It stalled, sometimes when taking your foot off the gas, when slowing down to make a turn....sometimes, when picking up speed above like 30mph. *sigh* Everytime it wanted to stall/stalled, the engine oil light blinked/came on. After it stalled, it did turn back over fine and restarted...until it stalled the next time....
We returned from the test drive and took the timing belt front cover off and rechecked the timing on the top cams. Also looked for belt shifting/rubbing on the top side - NOPE. He showed me that they're lined up. It's hard because on the bottom side, you can't see the TDC mark on the crankshaft while the harmonic balancer is in place. Anyway, he assured me he installed the belt according to the procedure outlined in the Haynes manual for my car (I own it and gave it to him for the install).
What do you think is going on here? He seems to think this is a "vacuum" problem. I read the other posts semi-related to mine and I see you talk about the EGR valve. Since I'm not getting any check engine lights, is this still applicable?
Of note, when disassembling the engine before the installs, he did break some of the clips/connections to some things because it was so cold. He wire-tied things back together to insure they didn't come apart from engine vibration, etc. I do notice some lines are rubber tubed together, some better looking than others! Would this cause "vaccum" problems....ARGH. I'm at a total loss...of time and $$$. Please help. Thanks for your time.
Pravash
AnswerHi Pravash,
I'm just cleaning house here having found this duplicate question in the 'pool' to the one we did together earlier today. Please let me know how things proceed from here. And by the way although you were so kind as to give me a nomination already, the rules of the contest allow one nomination for each question answered...so if you are moved to, do it again!
