Re: Killed my 164LS today. So what else is new?

[Fred Sacks <fredsacks@domain.elided>]

At 2:10 PM -0400 10/7/01, alfa-digest wrote:
>Good evening everyone. Hope everyone is having a better day than I've had.
>I've really done it this time. I've wounded my '94 164LS -- hopefully not
>fatally.
>Some of you may recall a response I posted yesterday regarding 24V V6
>flexpipes. I mentioned that today I was going to replace the engine mounts,
>and possibly the flexpipes too. Well, I did the mounts and decided to take
>the car for a test drive. That's when it all went wrong.
>The car started up and ran fine for about a minute. Then it started stumbling
>upon acceleration. Then, on top of that, it would stumble even when I just
>tried revving it. Then, it just started running poorly altogether -- I could
>barely move. Finally, it would start and run like it was on 3 cylinders, and
>the smell of raw gas was strong. Giving it any gas causes it to stall now. I
>checked the engine codes and got 1-2-2-4. I believe that's the O2 sensor,
>right? I checked the engine bay for any fuel injection/ignition electrical
>wires that may have gotten stressed when the engine was jacked up for the
>mount replacement. The most likely ones I saw were the two wires that plug
>into the "canister" like device between the intake plenum and the firewall.
>One other possibility I thought of was this (oh, and this is another reason
>why 24V owners should leave mount replacement to an expert!). Jacking the
>engine caused the poly-serpentine drive belt to get pushed in to the inner
>fender, resulting in a light tear on the flat (non ribbed) part of the belt.
>Could it be that this flap of material may have been rubbing against the
>wiring for some sensor around the serpentine belt? Just a thought. Anyway,
>any help would be appreciated! I'm probably just gonna have to send the car
>to the shop on Monday.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Adam
>'94 164LS

Adam--

The good news is that if it was running well prior to your repair, 
the chances are that it is something minor.  I've been working on 
cars a long time, and generally, when something happens suddenly, it 
is generally minor.  In fact, something almost identical to this 
happened to me.  You may have seen my post a few days ago regarding 
my Spider and the sputtering & need to keep the revs over 2000 to 
prevent stalling.  Finally got a chance to look at the car yesterday 
in the daylight, (Although that night I did a quick check to check 
connections and everything did appear tight.) and in about the first 
10 seconds in the daylight, I found the problem.  The high voltage 
wire from the coil to the distributor had just about come out of the 
coil and was making only fractional intermittent current.  Put the 
wire back in securly and it runs like a charm.  In fact the revs 
picked up and my guess (hope???) is that I will now pass emissions.

Anyway, my suggestion to you is that you check and doublecheck all 
ignition/electrical connections.  My quess is that something that was 
already loose got jarred a little looser when you raised or lowered 
the engine, and that it's nothing major.  Good luck.

Fred Sacks
90 Graduate

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