1998 Rodeo miss-fire

[daronbonz]

I had a blown head gaskets repair job also new timing belt and tensioner (which was difficult to find a new one) and heads machined (the whole works) I picked up my Rodeo from my mechanic drove it home no problems. After about 45 minutes my wife left in it to go somewhere and about three miles down the road the Rodeo goes dead. She finally gets it home after several times of going dead. The next morning I carried it back to my mechanic he calls 6 hours later and Cylinders 1,3, and 5 are not firing Cylinders 2,4, and 6 are working If he unplugs 1,3, or 5 engine still runs He says they have 150 lbs. of compression and should be working but they are not He put in new plugs and even re-check timing belt everything there is fine. Mechanically, he says, Rodeo is sound must be electrical? Any ideas he is totally baffled. Rodeo has 121,000 miles and is a 3.2 liter engine. Before the head gasket job engine purred like a cat just had to keep adding water

Bonz

[amigo-2k]

If one bank of cly's are not firing it seems to me that something is wrong with the timing.

[Gizmo42]

Could have also melted down and plugged up the cat converter on that side. If coolant was getting in the combustion chamber from the bad head gasket it could have coated and melted down the innerds.

[myrowdayoJOE]

have u check out ur ignition coils?

[srpope80]

Which side is not firing? UPDATE: Just read your post more thoroughly. 1,3,5 is the passenger side. Sounds like you have the CAM in the wrong position. Continued: I just found out this weekend (through not doing a little RTFM myself) that the driver side cam will "snap perfectly to the timing mark" and so will the passenger side, but you are supposed to position the passenger side cam where it snaps 90 degrees from the mark and then slowly (as it is under spring pressure) rotate it to the mark. It won't really want to stay there, but that is the way it is supposed to be. The first time I tried it only ran on drive side cylinders because of this. If your mechanic did this than that would be why.

On a side note, I know alot of you are probably saying, this guy is an idiot; he could have messed up his car etc. I spun the engine over 10 times by hand and started the car before I put the timing covers and crank pulley back on. She runs like a champ now. I have some pictures I'll be posting of the whole thing; water pump, timing belt, cam and crank seals and ALL of the tensioners. WHEEEW; it was a hot weekend in FL.

-Scott

[amigo-2k]

cool, we all look forward to your write up. Many of use are thinking about these things and there is just not a lot of info out there on it.