died while driving

Hello,

I have a 3 cylinder 95 metro. I've been driving it for 5 years and 80, 000 km. (50, 000 miles). It has only broken down on me once before. A replacement of a coil in the electronic system fixed it that time. Yesterday, I had stopped for a light, and when I tried to accellerate there was no power. I thought it was in third gear, so I double checked my shifting, and still nothing. Then it stalled on me. I tried to start it again and had no luck. There was lots of cranking, and the occasional sound that made me think it would turn over, but alas, it did not. I let it sit overnight and tried again. There was still lot's of cranking, but no gas igniting. I am pretty novice at this, but I think it could be a bad fuel pump. What I am asking is that anybody who has encountered this kind of problem tell me what fixed your car. Anybody who has ideas of what could be wrong, please tell me, it will help when I try to narrow down the problem. Thanks a bunch.

First thing I would do is check for spark. Pull one of the spark plug wires off the spark plug, and lie it on the valve cover or engine block. Have someone crank the motor while you look for a spark to jump out of the hole in the plug wire. If no spark, move up to the distributor. Unplug the wire from the distributor that goes to the ignition coil. Lie that on the valve cover or block. Have someone crank the car. If you have spark there, check the timing belt. If the timing belt is ok, replace your dist cap and rotor. If you get no spark at all, check your fuses under the hood. If fuses are good, check the power wires under the fuse box and make sure none of them are melted(common). If you have spark everywhere, see if you can hear the fuel pump relay click on under the hood. Have someone turn the car to "ON" every few seconds. You should hear one of the relays under the hood click on, then click off. If it's clicking, listen to the fuel pump in the back. You should hear it hum for about 3 seconds when you turn the car's key to "ON".

How long has it been since youv'e had a tuneup?If its been a while it wouldnt hurt to replace plugs,wires,cap,rotor,and fuel filter.On these 3 bangers if you have a cyl or two that is marginal it is alot worse than on an 8 cyl.If you want to check your plug wires one way is to have someone crank it over while its dark outside while you look for sparks near the plug and coil wires. this isn't a foolproof test but its worked for me a few times.

Ok, so I've been under the hood and this is what I've found. There is spark all the way to the plugs, and the plugs are new platinum plugs, so I don't think the problem is electrical. The engine is completely flooded, so I took out the plugs and wedged open the throtle neck to let the gas evaporate. The flooding is likely due to the over pumping when it died, and subsequently when I tried to start it again the next day. (Yes it is EFI, but that's what I did, good or bad.)

Immedietly after it died and I tried to start it again, there was a brief moment when I thought it got some gas and almost turned over. It did not do that at all on the two other times I tried starting it again.

The fuel filter was changed three months ago, and I have not run empty. The engine has not been tuned up, and I do have a slow oil leak, which I have not traced back to its source yet. I didn't look at the timing belt, but wouldn't the car crank really fast if it had come off?

I need your bright ideas please! Maybe it's time to move up to a civic...

if the belt broke you would have no spark. if the plugs look sooty black replace them, they are carbon fouled. if they look ok its possible you blew a head gasket or burned a valve or timing belt was really loose and jumped. might wanna run a compression test and see what it shows, should be over 170psi

oh, I forgot to mention. My automatic choke has been acting acting up since last February. On some mornings, and there is absolutely no obvious pattern sucha as cold days, moist days, etc, I need to give it a little gas for the first minute to keep it from stalling. Could this be related?

Jai

not if its flooding and they don't have a automatic choke like a carb. its a idle speed control device on the rear of the tb, should be a black box with about 5 wires going into it. doubt it would cause stalling/ no power problem.

When I tried again, I saw that an insane amount of gas was spitting out of the injector(s)? Is there a device that should control this? If there is way too much gas, would that cause immediate flooding, and therefore no igniting?

Because I have an oil leak, I'm concerned that that may be part or all of the problem. If I blew a head gasket, could it slowly progress into this kind of problem. What are the symptoms of a blown head gasket?

Thanks for any help,

Jai