1996 1.9 died

[bbetts]

Returning fr 1000km mountain trip of hard driving under load (Camping w kids). Car ran excellent. Proceeding down hill at speed, engine died. Put it in gear, got a slight restart and then died. Pulled over. Engine turned over fine but would not fire.

Towed home, Changed fuel filter, Can hear the fuel pump, turns over fine, has a spark on all cylinders. Does not fire at all. Timing belt in tact, other posts suggest possible timing belt slippage? If not the cause what else??

Any help greatly appreciated.

[jeffescortlx]

I had the same thing happen, some of the teeth on the timing belt got chewd off and it sliped.

[butch100]

I would remove the timing cover and check the timing marks.
If they dont alighn, the belt has slipped. If so replace it as
it was prob. damaged when it slipped on the toothed pully.
Might as well throw a new water pump on there if you do
end up changing the belt, mine started leaking 6 months after
I replaced the belt!. Good luck...

[bbetts]

Excellent advice. I initially suspected the belt as the cause but had trouble removing the belt cover and could see an in tact belt. Checked other things such as spark and schraeder valve but all showed positive action. It was info on this site that pushed me to give the belt ribs an inspection. I first did a compression test and got 0 in the #1 and #4. To get the cover off, the trick was to jack the engine higher after removing the motor mount to remove the cover. The missing teeth on the belt were immediatly evident.

The rest of the process was very straight forward and it fired flawlessly at the first turn of the crank and has full power plus.

Lesseon: do the compression test first. (so Simple)

Thanks again for the help. It saved big time and dollars.

B.

[butch100]

Glad it all worked out OK..I remember when I first pulled off that
cover, it's a mo-fugger of a job! Labor is so expensive on FWD cars
though,to pay to have it done it would have cost me 250..ouch,
time to buy a Hanes manuel!! Good luck..