'92 Eagle Talon Won't Start

[biniecki]

Heres the deal, a guy near where i live is selling a '92 Eagle Talon for cheap. The car is in great condition except for it wont fire up anymore. I talked to the guy selling it and he told me that it has been overheating lately. He fixed the problem the first time by replacing the water pump belt and thermostat. The problem then came back again and now he thinks its either the radiator or the possibly the water pump, but from talking to this guy he doesnt seem that bright and the system just might need a flush. He told another interested buyer that they could test drive it but just drive it around town; not on the express way, so that it wouldnt overheat. The interested buyer disregaurded the warning and took it on the express way and it overheated. The car has a sensor that automaticly shuts the vehicle off when it overheats and wont allow the car to start until it has cooled off. Once it had cooled down he tried to start it and it wouldnt fire. It will crank over but it seems like its not getting any spark or something. The owner thinks it might be the cap and router, spark plugs, or starter. If its turning over its not the starter lol. The owner told me that the car ran great (except for overheating) before the interested buyer test drove it and made it overheat. I think it might just be the engine temperature sensor that needs to be replaced. Just wanted to see if anyone else has encountered this problem and how they fixed it and also see what everyone else thinks might be causing the problem.

[gthompson97]

overheating can be caused by a number of things and is 95% of the time due to coolant loss. a stuck thermostat can cause overheating as well as a faulty waterpump, low coolant can cause overheating if it's that low. a bad radiator hose could cause loss of coolant and lead to overheating. many things can cause overheating.

the previous interested buyer could have totally fucked up the car for that guy. driving a car when it's overheating can warp the head and cause major damage to the engine. if this is true, you may have a leaking head gasket due to a warped head.

it also could be something simple like the sensor you mentioned. you just have to ask yourself if it's worth the risk of buying the car and it being something big or if you get lucky and it's just something small.

[biniecki]

the owner checked to make sure the head gaskets are fine. I know o to well how much damage can be caused by leaking heads. On my current car (93 Cougar) the girl that i bought it from blew a head gasket and continued to drive it. She eventually got antifreeze in the oil which in return caused the crankshaft bearings to get wiped out. I had to pull the engine and rebuild it from the ground up.

I really dont think anything major could be wrong with the car seeing how it ran perfect b4 it over heated this last time. Its trying to start but is either not getting spark or fuel. In which case most of those parts arnt very expensive but like you said do i really want to put the money into replacing part by part til i find the solution. The guy is only asking $700 for it and is also throwing in an extra set of 16" rims. I might be able to talk him down to $500 and then can prolly sell the rims for $100 easy that leaves me with a $400 investment which in the worst case i could prolly get back or even more pretty easy if i parted the car out.

For that price i dont think i can pass it up and work on it little by little as a project car. even if I were to stick a couple hundred bucks into it, it still would be one hell of a deal.

I dont think there is a check engine light or anything coming on but would i be able to hook it up to some sort of electronic device that could maybe tell me what the problem is?

[91 Eclipse]

well is it turbo or NT. if its turbo BUY IT, that would be a great deal. if its not turbo and you jut want a project buy it. ots kind of a judgement call and since you have experience with rebuilding engines it wouldnt be to hard to rebuild it.

[biniecki]

its not turbo charged but if i got it i would prolly eventually put one on it. Again it would be a good project car, great base to start with.