QuestionRoland, I wrote to you a few days ago about my daughter's
1992 Lebaron LX(V6 3.0) not starting. She was on the
freeway & it just died and will not restart. I have
verified no spark coming from the coil to the distributer.
I have plugged my meter into the plastic connector which
brings the spark into the coil & had my wife crank the
engine. Unfortunately, unless I'm doing it incorrectly
(which might be possible), I don't see anything out of
the connector feeding the/going into the coil. The meter
didn't show any voltage. I don't know what to do now
because I don't know what sends the voltage/spark to the
connector going into the coil. You had mentioned that if
I needed more help, and if the 'allexperts.com' link said
'maxed out', that I should just click on the 'rate the expert' and continue with my questions. Unfortunately, the website/allexperts.com did not allow me to do that(no link). And you are very popular so it is hard to find a time when you are not 'maxed-out'. So, I have waited, checking the website frequently, in hopes of getting in when you have an opening. In the future, perhaps it would be possible for you to reply to my e-mail address directly at: jrcarey@prodigy.net instead of going through the 'allexperts' site. In any event, I'm stuck. I will put my meter into the plug that feeds the coil(from the computer??) again & see if I missed any current/
voltage. If there is no voltage coming from that plug into the coil, what should I check/do next? Again, thank you for all of your help and assistance--I DO appreciate it. And do not worry, if you choose to send me an e-mail directly (to my e-mail address), I will not give your e-mail out address to anyone else. Thanks again. Jim
AnswerHi Jim,
Please return to the answer directly before this one which describes what voltage reading you should observe on the two-wire plug that fits into the spark coil. Notice that the pins of the plug are shaped as a "T". Those wires are attached to opposite ends of the primary winding of the spark coil. The "cross-piece" of the T should show 12V compared to any near by ground surface when the engine is being cranked IF both the senors in the distributor are working (which they appear to be because you only got a 55 code),and the engine computer is working. If that is not the case, then try swapping the ASD relay for another similarly numbered relay (say the A/C clutch or the radiator fan relay) and see if that get you the 12V to the T cross-piece. If it then does, then the ASD relay was bad and the engine should start using the substitute relay.
If you do have 12V while cranking on the cross-piece, take a fine stright pin and pierce through the insulation of the upright of the T pin's wire (black/gray); verify that you 'hit' the conductor by testing with an ohmmeter between the pin in the plug and the straight pin stuck thru the wire. Then put the plug into the coil, have your wife crank and measure the voltage on the straight pin. It should be less that 12V and possibly you will see it oscillate in sync with the cranking (but in any case it should have an rms value of less that 12V). If it doesn't then for some reason the computer is not putting out a pulsed signal on that wire.
Let me know the results.
You can get back to me one time via the thank/rate tab. I will send you another "answer" etc.etc. so we don't need to do this off-line. I believe you will find that either the ASD relay is bad, or the spark coil is bad. There is a test for the spark coil that involves putting 12v on one end of the primary, and a capacitor on the other end and then shorting the capacitor to ground while you have a helper check for spark at the end of the high voltage wire from the coil. But first, did you measure the coil resistances that I described in the earlier answer? And please recheck for fault codes.
Roland
History:3.0L starting problem
Question: Hi my daughter has a 1992 Lebaron convertible(V6 3.0) that just died the other day while driving on the freeway. And now it won't start. The engine turns over but it won't catch/start. I listened near the gas tank spout while my wife turned the key and I heard the sound of the fuel pump so I believe the car is getting gas. I checked & there was no spark coming from the coil to the distributer. (This has a differnt looking coil than I'm used to). Anyway, I plugged my meter into the electrical connector going into the coil. I had my turn the key again and ther isn't any voltage going into the coil. Shouldn't there be 12 volts? I checked all the fuses and they are good. I swapped out the ignition and starter relays with other components(that use the same relay) and again the car will not start I have no idea what to check now. Can you help?
Answer: Hi Jim
What you have done so far is good. The fuel pump will normally run for a second when you turn the key to the run position. The lack of spark could be due to a failure of the photo-optic sensor in the distributor. Try the ignition key to read-out the fault codes from the engine controller:"on-off-on-off-on and leave on" doing that in 5 seconds or less elapase time. Then watch the check engine light, which remains "on" to begin to flash, pause, flash, etc. Count the number of flashes before each pause. Then repeat to be sure of a consistent count. The last sets for flash are always 5 in each. Then group the counts in pairs in the order of appearance. The last pair is always 55, which means 'end of readout'. If you also get an 11 or a 54 that means that sensor unit needs to be replaced in the distributor. It is pretty obvious how to do it, but see if it comes with instructions and if not let me know. Let me know any other code as well.
Roland
Roland is FANTASTIC! Roland, I pulled the codes and got the 55. I did it two more times and got the same code 55.(FYI:I looked up the ignition coil on autozone.com and it looks like part #C872, made by Duralast-Wells) Oh, surfing the internet I found an article about the ASD/auto-shutdown on this car. What is that and could it be involved?
Hi Jim,
Now we have the fact that there are no codes, which means that the sensors in the distributor are ok, and therefor you should have 12V delivered to the coil from the autoshutdown relay (that device is activated by the presence of the pulses from the distributor; its purpose is safety: to remove the spark and fuel if the engine stops rotating, such as in a crash).
You can verify that 12V by checking the 2-wire plug at the spark coil where you should find that while the starter is cranking there should be 12v on the upright of "T" plug (the crosspiece is the coil primary "driver" which should be pulsing between 12V and ground but you might not be able to 'see' that with a voltmeter because the pulse rate is too rapid). You may not have seen the 12V to the coil before because your wife wasn't cranking? It will be there for 1 second (like the fuel pump when the key it turned to 'run' but then it disappears until the engine is cranked). But the upright is definitely the "output voltage" from the autoshutdown relay which is also provided to the injectors and alternator field coils. So verify that at the coil plug. If it is there, and because there are no codes for the distributor sensors, then there should be spark from the coil when you hold the tip of its wire (pulled out of the distributor cap) 1/4" from the block/head. If not, then the coil would be suspect unless the 'driver' wire wasn't pulsing (which also would cause a code). The primary of the coil should read .97 to 1.18 ohms, and the secondary winding "output" to ground should read 11,000 to 15,300 ohms. But then if you do find spark on the output wire when cranking, but you don't see spark at the plugs (or the plug caps with screwdriver inserted and shaft held similarly 1/4" from block/head) then I would suspect the rotor is 'open' or the cap is shorting voltage to ground.
Sorry to be so long-texted, but I know you are the sort of do it yourselfer who would want all this.
Please tell me of any progress. And thank for the kind remarks and nomination.
Roland
