Did a timing belt, water pump, and pcv on my friend's 97 850 last night, and we also did oil change. Started car last night and it ran fine, but today it started and immediately died...and now it won't start at all. Any ideas as to what might have happened, anyone? I'm hoping it didn't jump timing for some reason...

 

Need to start with the basics. Do you have spark at the plugs?
Do you have 40+ psi in the fuel rail and are the injectors firing?
If the plugs are wet you know you have fuel and likely no spark.
If they aren't wet you might try a shot of starting fluid and see if it runs for a second or two. Then you know you have spark and no fuel.

 

Have fuel and have spark. And timing is dead on still.

 

Well, unless it is mechanically locked up, you need 4 things for it to run. Fuel, air, spark, and proper time. See if it is locked up by trying to turn it over by hand several revolutions. If it is free, double check timing, then spark, and last of all air.

Good luck

 

The 4 things are fuel, air, spark and compression. If timing is off, you wont have compression because you will have bent valves. So, are you sure, sure you have spark and fuel? If so, my guess is air, the MAF. Old cars are like time bombs, anything can go wrong at any time.

 

I'd still try the starting fluid just to see if richening it up might get it to fire.

Or,,,, the coil is starting to fail and you see spark but it isn't "hot" enough.

Since you just did the belt I'd think the problem is with it being out of time. That would explain the fuel and spark but no start. I'd guess by now you've checked that a few times though.

 

It ran for a while. Unless he forgot to pull the pin from the tensioner it should be in time, which he said he checked.

That's why I really don't like doing more than 1 major job at a time. It's likely something with the PCV and everyone want to blame the timing.

 

Pin was pulled on tensioner, and we definitely have fuel pressure, and checked maf. No problems there, and we double checked timing and is dead nuts on.

 

Hate to be **** but just as sanity ck, I would run a compression test.

Only other thing I am thinking is maybe a pinched hose or something under the intake manifold gasket making for a large vacuum leak.

When you started it the other night did you let up it warm up to operating temperature or did you shut it down after just a minute or so..? Even with a large vac leak it may start and run on the cold start mode cycle.

 

Update: in an odd coincidence, the coil is not putting out a thing...12v going in though. Coil replacement is next step...we tried starter fluid last night and didn't even get a random ignition, which I'd expect even if timing and compression were screwed. That's what got me wondering about coil.

 

Replaced coil and car fired immediately and runs GREAT. thanks for everyone's input.

 

Sweet!!!

 

By chance did you guys do a compression test while doing all this work..? Kinda strange the coil just happened to go out now..

 

Compression was great...and biggest variance between cylinders was just under 10 lbs.

 

What were the numbers and mileage on the car. Just like to see the numbers on these old cars.

 

Mileage is 220k and i don't remember all the numbers, but high was 198 and low was 189.

 

that seems really good!

 

So did you disconnect the primary wire(s) when you did compression test? If you didn't, that's what killed your coil.

 

Yeah we did. Coil was already dead at that point though.

 

Ok, cool. I guess it's a NA car. The numbers should be between 189 - 219.