Starting Problem looking for suggestions

[bigsmellyman]

I have a '94 firefly 1.0l. A while back it started idling rough. I replaced the cap and rotor and checked the plugs. The plugs looked good. This helped the idle, but when it had been sitting it was hard to start like it was only running on 2 cylinders. I replaced the plug wires and that helped some more. I haven't checked the fuel pressure, but believe it is good because the car will rev out in each gear and does not miss. I've found that I have to give it a touch of gas or it will run rough and stall when starting. As soon as you rev it a bit the roughness stops. Any suggestions?

[Woodie83]

Sounds like burned valves, get a compression test. Engine warm, all plugs out, throttle held wide open. Factory says 200 new, 155 minimum. They'll still run until they get down to about 100, but poorly, starting and idle are the first things to go.

[Johnny Mullet]

I second the compression test.

[bigsmellyman]

Thanks. I'll work on getting that done. It has 143,000 KM's.

[bigsmellyman]

Looks like something in the T.B was plugged. After months of checking stuff, I cleaned the T.B. As soon as I did that the idle came up considerably. It runs great all the time now. Another problem I found was the connector for the fuel tank was not reliable. I suspected that because the fuel gauge was moving all over the place. I directly spliced the wires.

[Colt1911]

Originally Posted by bigsmellyman

Looks like something in the T.B was plugged. After months of checking stuff, I cleaned the T.B. As soon as I did that the idle came up considerably. It runs great all the time now. Another problem I found was the connector for the fuel tank was not reliable. I suspected that because the fuel gauge was moving all over the place. I directly spliced the wires.

Reminds me of the ever elusive air filter/intake congested, or cat/exaust plugged problem. Somethings are not always obvious.

[udel]

Okay, here's my dumb question. Whats the TB that bigsmellyman is describing was plugged?

[Colt1911]

throttle body

[udel]

Bigsmellyman, could you elaborate on the details of what was plugged in the TB, and what you did to clean it? Also, exactly where in the TB that it was plugged? What you had wrong sounds exactly like my problem, so any info would be very appreciated.

[bigsmellyman]

I don't know exactly what was plugged. I removed the air filter and with the engine running sprayed throttle body cleaner into the TB. You have to keep your hand on the throttle to keep it running. Don't spray in too much at once or it will stall. It's hard, but I'm going to have to let my firefly go. There are getting to be too many problems to make it worth fixing. I did well though, I paid $5k for it back in 2001. Good luck and thanks. Forums like this are great. dave

[udel]

Thanks for getting back to me. I really appreciate that. I think I'm with you on calling it a day with my Metro. Mine doesn't owe me a dime anymore. I'm going to do as you said with the TB cleaner, and that will be my last attempt with this car. I've already checked the catalytic converter plugged theory, but no luck with that being the issue. I'm fairly convinced that I have a head gasket or cracked head issue. I've checked the compression and it's a solid 180psi across the cylinders. However, I've been keeping close tabs on the radiator, and I'm losing antifreeze. There are no visible leaks anywhere. I have to assume now that just enough antifreeze is leaking into a cylinder causing one cylinder not to fire at startup. It sucks, because once it gets going, it runs great. But the problem has got increasingly worse, and I won't be happy if I'm stuck somewhere someday when the car simply won't start.