'95 Grand Prix - car died, now won't start

[jessman1128]

My daughter has a '95 Grand Prix (3100 V6). The other day it died on her while she was driving down the road. I wasn't with her at the time, but she described it as if the power had suddenly been cut, like if somebody had turned the ignition off while the car was driving or something. When she tried to start it, it wouldn't start, it wouldn't try to turn over, all she heard was a click.

I spent some time working on it yesterday, took the battery and alternator to AutoZone to have them test them...the alternator is fine, and the battery is charged and is holding a charge fine. When you try to start it you can hear a loud click once (presumably from the starter) and that's it. Nothing else.

Any ideas on what the problem might be? I'm considering that it may be a starter problem, but if so that would mean something else caused the car to die while it was driving and then the starter decided to go bad at that exact same time....because a bad starter can't cause a car to die while it is driving.....can it? So if it's not the starter, and we know it's not the battery or alternator, am I looking at a bad connection somewhere? Or is there another piece to this puzzle that I'm missing?

I'd appreciate hearing any suggestions anyone has!!

[jessman1128]

I've been doing some more research and I'm starting to wonder now if maybe the engine is seized. Does anyone know where I would find the crankshaft bolt on this engine so I can attempt to turn it by hand? I don't even know what I'm looking for to find the crankshaft bolt.

Still interested in any other suggestions anyone might have...

Thanks!

[BlueGT02]

the harmonic balancer bolt, the biggest pully al the way at the bottom of the front of the motor, the motor being seized was my guess to, i think the bolt is a 17mm or an 18mm

[jessman1128]

ok thanks...I'm assuming I need to remove the belt before attempting to turn it, right? and it's supposed to turn clockwise?

[BlueGT02]

yes you must remove that belt, unless you plan on training for the world strong man competition

you turn the bolt and it should turn the whole motor

the other way, is, if you want to lift the vehicle there is an inspection cover on the transmission end of the motor that is held on by two bolts, if you remove this you can try to get a flywheel turning tool in there to turn the motor over

[BlueGT02]

oh, and dont forget to pur it in neutral, also while trying to start, did you try it in different gears, or is it turning a little when cranking

[jessman1128]

I haven't tried starting it in different gears, no...just park. It's not cranking or turning at all.

[Carwhiz]

check the simple stuff before you go through all that work into trying to turn the engine over by hand......check to see if there is spark, if there isn't, then probably crank sensor-a common problem on gm v6's. Did it make any noise before it died???? just stall???? if so......prolly crank sensor.

[jessman1128]

I don't know if it made a noise first, or just plain died. My daughter didn't mention it making any noise before it died, but I'll ask her tonight and see if she remembers anything.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try checking for spark before I do anything else. I'm not exactly sure how to do that (never had to before), but I have a pretty good guide that I think explains how to, so I'll check that out.

[richtazz]

Ask her if any warning lights came on prior to it stalling like the oil or temp warning lights, check guages, etc... Also, if the car has guages, did any of them read too high (temp) or too low (oil)?

[jessman1128]

She said the battery and oil pressure lights came on when the car died...she didn't notice them being on before it died. Don't know about the gauges...I don't remember which, if any, that it has.....but I'm fairly sure that she wouldn't have been paying attention to them if there are any.

[richtazz]

If no lights came on or the car didn't make any nasty noises before it died, I'd say either you have a corroded battery cable or a dead starter. A corroded battery cable would cause both the car to die and the car not to start.

[jessman1128]

Would a corroded battery cable allow power to get to the starter for it to be making the "click" noise?

[jessman1128]

Hey everyone, thanks for the suggestions so far, I really appreciate them. If you don't mind humoring me for a minute here, I have a couple of questions/clarifications about the suggestions that have been made. I'm going to have to take a few hours off of work in order to work on this again, and I'm going to be stuck there (in a McDonald's parking lot) with limited time and my tools and book and nothing else....no computer access or anything...so I want to make sure I know exactly what I'm doing as much as possible going into it.

1) First thing I'm going to do is try to start it in neutral, to rule out the neutral safety switch, or whatever it's called.

2) Then, the starter doesn't sound too difficult to remove, so I'm thinking I may pull that off and take it to AutoZone to be tested anyway, even though that's probably not the problem because it wouldn't have killed the car while it was running.

3) If I'm hearing a click, presumably from the starter, that means the starter is getting power, right? Does that rule out the possibility of a corroded battery cable, or could that still be the issue?

3) Info I found elsewhere online suggests that a bad crankshaft position sensor would still allow the starter to crank the engine, it just wouldn't actually start. Is that correct? Because I'm not getting any cranking, just the click...is it possible that it could still be the crankshaft position sensor, or does the "no crank" rule that out?

4) Are the "spark testers" available at auto parts stores reliable enough to test for spark? Or do I need to pull one of the plugs and check for spark that way?

5) Eventually, if it gets to that point, I'll be attempting to turn the engine by hand.

I think that's it for now.

Thank you all very much for your help and suggestions. You guys are awesome.

[TEAM_BRIAN]

I went through this not too long ago. My battery died and went bad which afterwards my starter died. I had to lift the engine up a little to get to the starter, That 3.4... REAL easy to get to things on it. Anyway I learned of something called "dead battery" which can kill your starter from a bad battery. The fuel pressure regulator went bad after that, still don't know how, and then i replaced that. Then, from the high pressure on the fuel pump because of the bad regulator, the fuel pump is now messed up. Gotta hate these chain reactions...