95 3.1 dies intrmtntly, restarts for sec, dies

Greetings,

I have a 1995 Lumina 3.1 V6, 220,000 miles. Bought from very conscientious coworker whose wife did not trust the car, for reasons I have discovered in my one week of driving it.

Intermittently it dies. I have only experienced it twice, so this is more anecdotal than researched:

Dies. I crank it over, it starts for a moment, then bogs down/dies again.

First time it was idling in a parking lot after 12 minutes of driving, idled for 2 or 3 minutes then it died without any fanfare. I cranked it over, it started for a few seconds, then died again. It restarted and ran fine after poking around under the hood for a minute. Mid 30's F.

A few days later:

I was driving, probably for about 16 minutes. I was driving through snow, had the fan full blast and listening to the radio, so I didn't hear anything but I noticed the oil pressure light came on and the car acting sluggish. I was not accelerating at the time. I feathered the gas a few times and it straightened out (btw the guy had mounted an oil pressure gauge and after the car acted up I looked at it and I think it was fine; at the very least it was steady for that moment that it ran again. Would be useful with a baseline though). Then it died. Then I put it in neutral and cranked it over and it started working again so back in drive. Then it bogged down and I feathered the gas then it died and would not restart. It would crank over and over but not fire or act like it was going to. I coasted to the side of the road and continued trying to start it. I poked around under the hood with the same stuff I'd poked at last time, but to narrow it down I tried one thing at a time then tried to start, repeat. I jiggled wires to left of Ignition, then messed with/ tapped on ignition, then messed with wires by MAS.
Long story short, it wouldn't start until an hour later when I came back by to leave keys for tow truck driver. Started fine and I rushed home. From time of dying to starting again it sat for 1 and a half hours, 40 mins of which were with the hood up in 25 degrees F.

MIGHT I ADD that the automatic locking of the doors PISSES ME OFF.

Other complaints:
After an unreasonably short amount of cranking attempts it drained the battery, but no way to access the terminals with the jumpers!
Sometimes it will just click off once when I go to start it, so I wait a few seconds or hit the unlock button on my aftermarket alarm remote and it starts up, except for today, when it was particularly stubborn.

My thoughts:
Alarm messing up? I hear ones with remote start (does not have) will mess up over time.
After searching I have come up with these threads that I will pursue, basic advice I see
here is check for spark, check for fuel pressure:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=650709&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=685995&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=692176&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=884402&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=288363&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1011242&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1050466&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1051146&highlight=dies
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1051687

Previous owner had since 2001 or 2 and said it used to only happen once a year or so, sometimes only every 6 months or so. First time, he replaced Ignition Module, but second time it wasn't bad. He said last time was only a month between. For me, it happened on Thursday and then today, Monday.
A couple times now I have driven it for about 20 minutes.

Next step is check for spark, check for fuel pressure. Couldn't find fuel line relief valve today. Found the AC one. Oops. Only lost a little though.

Thanks in advance for any advice. I will try to keep this updated as I go; I want to be of assistance to others.

No luck with it dying today. Parked it and let it run in front of the house for half an hour after the 15 minute drive home. Better luck next time.

Most aftermarket alarms not very reliable. If system loses oil press. or the sending unit goes bad not registering press.,it will not start or will die while running

You get it fixed? Read my post on what i found or read this.
Hell here goes, swapped out the 02 sen. The map and it still died. Tried another pcm and still died. So i thought, Let's check the injectors. Pulled the plenum and swapped them out. Later i learned to ohm check them, So i checked the old ones and 1 was 1.4 ohm's. Speck is 11 to 14. So that was it, also one checked out at 6.4. So between the 1 Bad and 1 low i figured i had it made. The i ohm'd the set i just put in and there was another low one 10.2 ohm's. So i yanked the set i just put in and heated up some atf in a pot on a burner to heat the oil to 220 degrees and rechecked them. None shorted out when hot and they all ohm'd at 11.7. SO i put them in and when i went to install the plenum i noticed the pcv hose bent in a 90 degree angle so bad it wasn't pulling the crankcase fumes good enough. (that would explane the oil film in the fresh air hose). I also checked the vac. side of the egr valve and it wasn't sealing. (making a vac leak there- no wonder my vac. reading was low) Any way i cheated for now and made a asbestos gasket to plug it off untill i can swap out the egr valve. It's starting good and running down the road fine, No cutting out like it did and no c.e.l. Thank's for your help and B chatting to ya

Most aftermarket alarms not very reliable. If system loses oil press. or the sending unit goes bad not registering press.,it will not start or will die while running

hmm, so you think maybe the oil pressure sending unit may have reported low oil press and PRECEDED the engine shutting down? interesting. I'll have to look into that. I figured it was happening as a result of the engine bogging down.

@slingslingbinks: hasn't happened again yet. sorta bad, sorta good.

Yesterday I was reading through a chilton's manual for another chevy and came across the recommendation that in case of the car not starting or running right, one way to check the injectors is to use an automotive stethoscope, or, in lieu of that, a screwdriver on the injector with your ear at the handle and listen for the clicking of it going off.

Oh and after talking to the previous owner, he said it never lost fuel pressure in the rail (when checking after it was dead, not while it was driving/dying) and replacement of fuel pump did not help. He also said no spark condition. His guess was cam sensor, which would kill the spark and the injectors too, so I want to check the injectors whenever it messes up again. He has a parallel engine harness from the PCM to the ICM (i think it's those two) that he had tried swapping back and forth with when it messes up, but no luck.

You get it fixed? Read my post on what i found or read this.
Hell here goes, swapped out the 02 sen. The map and it still died. Tried another pcm and still died. So i thought, Let's check the injectors. Pulled the plenum and swapped them out. Later i learned to ohm check them, So i checked the old ones and 1 was 1.4 ohm's. Speck is 11 to 14. So that was it, also one checked out at 6.4. So between the 1 Bad and 1 low i figured i had it made. The i ohm'd the set i just put in and there was another low one 10.2 ohm's. So i yanked the set i just put in and heated up some atf in a pot on a burner to heat the oil to 220 degrees and rechecked them. None shorted out when hot and they all ohm'd at 11.7. SO i put them in and when i went to install the plenum i noticed the pcv hose bent in a 90 degree angle so bad it wasn't pulling the crankcase fumes good enough. (that would explane the oil film in the fresh air hose). I also checked the vac. side of the egr valve and it wasn't sealing. (making a vac leak there- no wonder my vac. reading was low) Any way i cheated for now and made a asbestos gasket to plug it off untill i can swap out the egr valve. It's starting good and running down the road fine, No cutting out like it did and no c.e.l. Thank's for your help and B chatting to ya

You know this sounds all to familiar. I am presently working on a 91 lumina with a 3.1 and was starting to pull my hair out as it was giving the same symptoms of dying out then not starting back up or starting and dying even when cold. It had spark, fuel pressure, and when I checked the fuel injector for pulse it showed there was one on the front injector. There are only 2 injectors that you can get to, one at the front of the engine and one at the back. When I checked the injector at the rear of the engine it fired up and ran fine except for the miss from having the injector unplugged. Well when I removed the noid light and plugged the injector back in the engine died. So I unplugged it again and the engine fired up and once again plugged it back in and the engine died again. When I ohmed that injector it was 3.6, way out of spec. First time in 40 years of messing around with engines that I have seen 1 injector keep the engine from running. Never stop learning in this trade.

Had simular issues with my 90 lumina 3.1 also this week...

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1063421

Got down to either bad ecm or bad injector. Sense my car had the origional ecm i decided to replace it first with good results. But i still have fears of bad injectors and the new ecm just handling it better.

:-(

Most aftermarket alarms not very reliable. If system loses oil press. or the sending unit goes bad not registering press.,it will not start or will die while running

Does the 90 euro also cut off when it looses oil pressure? my oil pressure guage goes crazy but i know i i have pressure... humm....

I had a chevy corsica that was doing this. I replaced the computer,and 4 of the magnetic sensors, turned out to be the crankshaft position sensor. The old magnetic sensors get weak and stop/start sensing. Since they are weak they become intermittent.

Mine would be fine for a week.... shut down at a stop light start right up.... or waited 15 minutes and it would go again.... next day more trouble then everything was ok for a month.:banghead:. No dealer or mechanic could figure it out.:jerking: Took me months to figure it out.:screwy:

Good Luck!

rant: i hate this car.
/rant

i like this car, but i've driven about 400 miles since January because i DON'T want to walk home or to work. Can't remember why I've not gotten around to replacing sensors - oh yeah, I needed to pay rent. Shoot. I will for sure post when I get stuff figured out, but in the mean time I'm making a list of everything everyone suggests.

Back in March it drove and drove but I stopped the car, tried to restart it like 2 minutes later with no luck, like starter was bad, got a ride, 2 hours later it started up fine right away. Sounds like more than one issue.

i'm mad at this car because it could be such a good car but I can't drive it

rant: i hate this car.
/rant

i like this car, but i've driven about 400 miles since January because i DON'T want to walk home or to work. Can't remember why I've not gotten around to replacing sensors - oh yeah, I needed to pay rent. Shoot. I will for sure post when I get stuff figured out, but in the mean time I'm making a list of everything everyone suggests.

Back in March it drove and drove but I stopped the car, tried to restart it like 2 minutes later with no luck, like starter was bad, got a ride, 2 hours later it started up fine right away. Sounds like more than one issue.

i'm mad at this car because it could be such a good car but I can't drive it

I know the feeling buddy! i ve been fighting simular issues with my lumina as well. ive been looking for a new car this week and it stoped acting up and ran like a dream! when i desided this morning i would stick with the lumina a little longer it died in a intersection... :-(

i think its just bad design on the part of gm.. has to be. When these cars are running at their best they are hard to beat and fun to drive!

I own 4 luminas. have had same problem. Check your Injectors. It has happened to me twice.

I own 4 luminas. have had same problem. Check your Injectors. It has happened to me twice.

If you look at my other post, injectors ended up being my issues too.
I had (3) injectors that were way below specs and they even burned up one ecm in the process.

they should be between 12 and 13 ohms at room temperature. You will need to pull off the upper intake but prob wouldnt hurt to do that anyways and give it a good soaking in degreaser and clean the egr passages!

check this wire ( http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=38654&d=1269150248 ) on the firewall side of the engine (crank pos sensor). wire burns easily on the exhaust and melts insulation and shorts out the sensor. not sure if this applies to your year lumi. you can see in the picture the plastic loom was burned in half, and burned the insulation on the wires which I replaced long before taking this pic) Up until I replaced that wire a few years ago, it would run, then completely die, then after cranking would sometimes start up... I guess the rocking of the engine during starting would move the wire and sometimes un-short it.

aside from the sensor, i'd see if you dont have some kind of electrical problem, charging problem, or faulty battery....

on my 95 lumina there was one small pigtail hanging out by the air hose from the main bunch of wires, dangling down by the transmission. turns out that on some years, apparently, there are two systems that tell the fuel pump to give fuel: one for when the car is starting, one for when the car is running. well, the car would start and then die right away. so my mechanic friend connected this pigtail to the positive terminal and then the car would stay running (!!!).
the bad sensors that we speculated about, crank and cam position sensors, could have told the fuel pump not to work. so the car would start fine sometimes, but then when it started those sensors told it to stop giving gas. tested it a little and it worked consistently.

if you connect this, put a kill switch and fuse or something cause it will keep the pump running 24/7 and drain your battery.

sometimes when under load before i did that direct connection to the pigtail it would die too, so my mechanic friend speculated that it was a fuel pump going bad too.

i have sold the car and the new owner has replaced the starter and battery but says that it only starts when it wants to still. i'll suggest that he jump start it too, cause i got the idea that that helped me sometimes, but something else might be going bad with it too.

also, i looked on someone's 99 and didn't see this pigtail, so it may not be there on all years.

best of luck

there are two systems that tell the fuel pump to give fuel: one for when the car is starting, one for when the car is running.
GM vehicles run the pump for two seconds when the key is turned on. Then the fuel pump is turned on again when the ECM discovers that the engine is cranking/running.

the car would start and then die right away. so my mechanic friend connected this pigtail to the positive terminal and then the car would stay running (!!!).
You've just figured out that the ECM is not tripping the fuel pump relay when the engine cranks. (or the relay or relay wires/fuse are defective.)

if you connect this, put a kill switch and fuse or something cause it will keep the pump running 24/7 and drain your battery.
That's crazy. Fix the true problem instead of using the fuel pump test wire to run the vehicle.

i looked on someone's 99 and didn't see this pigtail, so it may not be there on all years.
I haven't seen the test connector on my '92 and '93 either, although it may be there somewhere.