91 Camry spark Problems

[kustomzingkid]

Hello, I stumbled on this site searching for ideas on how to fix a friends car, and I've got to say this is a great little site.

Here's my problem. It's a 91 camry with the v6 in it and my friend was driving it and it flat out died and wouldn't not start, not even fire at all. I've found that it has no spark at all. I've been trying to do a few diagnostics on it by using a test light and checking the wires going to the coil and to the firing module.

With my test light only one wire on the module and coil give me anything. The wire is one of the upper ones on the plug going into the module, all the other wire give me nothing at all.

Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

[davemac2]

Well, your best bet would be to pull out the electrical wiring diagrams for your year and model and start tracing to see if any fuseable links or fuses are gone. If you are getting no spark at all, it could be an open coil, bad ignitor, broken rotor/distributor, open pickup coil on the distributor, bad ignition switch?

1. Check the fuses first.

2. Measure the primary and secondary coil resistances of the ignition coil and make sure neither is open.

3. Take the distributor cap off and inspect the rotor.

4. Put it all back. You said you believe you see power to the ignitor with the ignition key on. Get someone to crank the engine and use a meter or your light (use a neon light I would think) on the output secondary of the ignition coil going to the distributor to see if it is firing. If it isn't, then it is something in the coil , ignitor or ECU. ECU may not be getting proper sigs from the distributor pickup coils.

5. If the ignition wires are fairly old, I would buy a new set along with a new rotor and dist. cap first to eliminate all those. Cheap to do and will improve reliability anyways.

Ignition Manual: http://www.camrymanuals.com/manuals/90/Ignition.pdf

Dave Mc

[RIP]

If the rotor isn't rotating when you crank the engine, it's a good bet the timing belt is broken. Another sign of a broken timing belt is a faster than normal rotation speed as you crank. Many valves are stuck open, killing compression and resistance to turn the crankshaft. A compression check will fail on most cylinders. >80K miles on a timing belt is another sign.