98 Malibu LS won't start

Hi everyone, let me start off by apologizing if i have accidentally created a similar thread, don't mean to spam or anything. Anyway, i've been having trouble with my car lately and it's getting to be a real pain. I drive the car around town almost every day and have never had any trouble with it, all of a sudden i make a trip down to another city (50 mile drive) and as soon as i get there, the car stalls out on the highway, i put it in Neutral and started it while driving at 80mph, the car ran. As soon as i stepped on the gas, i can feel the car shift to 2nd gear and the engine stalls out, i had the car towed home. Now it's sitting in the driveway and i put an error code reader on it and got the EVAP Purge valve error, after reading some of the forums i went ahead and bought a new one and replaced it. Now the car won't start, i replaced the spark plugs, oil, oil filter, spark plug cables and no luck. I've decided to troubleshoot it and started with the spark plugs, the spark plugs are working properly, the fuel pump primes and i got good pressure on the camshaft but the car absolutely refuses to start, it'll crank and run the battery down, but it will not start. After reading these forums i think it might be the theft system, but i don't want to cut the yellow wire until i start the engine first, any ideas? Thanks in advance and FYI the car is a 98 Malibu LS, 3.1 engine and has 140K miles on it.

A theft deterrent problem will not cause a car stall while driving. If it fails after the car is started it will continue to run until the car is turned off, then start and stall on starting attempts after that. Does it start and stall, or just crank and not try to start at all? If you have good spark, check for injector pulse. If you do not have a noid light to test for pulse you can use a 194 (peanut) bulb. Squeeze each bulb wire loop shut and spread the wires. Unplug an injector and plug the bulb into the connector (one wire in each terminal). The bulb should flash as you crank the vehicle. If it does you may have a fuel delivery problem. The fuel pressure on a 3.1 should be 41-47 psi. You can also see if it will start by spraying carb or throttle body cleaner in the intake tube while somebody cranks the engine to verify a fuel problem. Be careful in case of a backfire! Don't spray too much. These are just some initial tests. If the car felt like it was is second gear but had no power, I would suspect low fuel volume or a restricted exhaust. Both could cause a stall and no start.

Hello procaddytech, thanks for replying on such short notice, i'm happy to see that people still try to help each other. I've thought about what you said and decided to get a "real" mechanic to check out the car and see what he could find. I explained the situation to him and he noticed that the cables i replaced were not connected properly, being a newbie to the car world i guess i mixed and matched them when it came time to plug them into the ignition coils. Anyway, he got em straightened out and the car turned right over, we took it for a spin and stalled out, he said the car is low on fuel. We put some gas in it and the car is running fine now, i did however notice that the gauge has gone all the way around and is now stuck but that's something i can easily fix. I'm still a bit uneasy driving around, i keep thinking it's gonna stall but it purrs and take off like a brand new car. Any thoughts? Again, thanks for your quick response. PS: should i close this thread? or just let it be?

You are welcome and hello to you. What excactly do you mean when you say "the gauge has gone all the way around"? If the gauge will fluctuate or suddenly jump from say 3/4 tank to E, I would suspect a fuel level sensor. Sometimes if you stand outside the car and shake it side to side fuel slosh will move the float and the sensor may make good contact and the gauge will read correctly again for a while. If you mean it went around past it's limits of E or F then the instrument panel cluster is the most likely fault. If the technician you took it to has a capable scan tool, there is a "gauge sweep" special function to test the cluster for smooth operation. There are always intermittent wiring problems that may exsist but let's hope that is not the case!
Let me add that when you turn the key to run the cluster will do it's own bulb check and may do gauge sweep. Note what the fuel gauge does.

I noticed, when working on a '98 Malibu LS, that if I disconnect and reconnect the battery, the temp gauge may end up outside of the low-side limit (peg coming out to keep if from going too low). I've had to stick a fine piece of wire through the odometer trip button hole and force it to the right until it bangs back up to the top. You have to coordinate the pushing over of the needle with a key turn on after it's been pushed over. It worked correctly after that.

Sorry guys, i posted a reply on my blackberry yesterday but i guess it didn't go through for some reason or another. What i meant when i said the gauge has gone all the way around is that it literally went all the way around and was stuck on the pin just below the E. Just as rkvons did, i managed to fish a wire through the odometer hole and pull it over the plastic pin, it's now back where it belongs. What i have noticed is that when the gauge hits the 1/4 mark the car will start stalling as if it were out of gas. Any ideas as to what might be affecting it?

Just an FYI: when my 99 Malibu gas guage is down to 1/4, it drops down to empty and the dinger dings. But it's not worth it to me to drop the tank and replace the unit.