joeblo223

i drove my truck all day no issuess came home parked it for a few days with single digit tempature i tryed to start the truck it almost turned over then batery dies so i replaced with a new one engine cranks over fine but wont even try to start. fuel is at fuel rail and has presure so i pulled the #1 sparkplug and grounded it to block has spark but it is orange i tried to use an inductive timing light on it and it wont light but still has spark i dont know where to go from here i tried replacein coil, ignitor, computer and plug wires please someone help me out i am stumped

scope103

Don't worry about the color of the spark, but I would check the gap. If the inductive timing light doesn't flash there are only two possibilities: you're using the light wrong, or the gap is big enough that the plug doesn't fire when it's in the engine. (You can try putting the inductive pickup on the coil wire; it should fire there 6x as fast as a single plug.)

Once you sort out the spark, you only need fuel and air. You could try a short spritz of starting fluid to see if it fires at all; if it does you have a fuel problem (don't use much of that starting fluid; it'll give your engine cancer or herpes or something).

stanprophet

I would checked the basics first. Since it ran fine before the battery died that is where you need to check first. It is possible that one of the fuses blew when performing the battery replacement, check all of the fuses and fusible links to make sure they are good.

Dave

joeblo223

Witch fuses should I check I already tried starting fluid with no luck i will try to gap sparkplugs and see what happens tried my timing light on a different truck and it works fine

Austin Marr

Check your EFI fuse in the fuse box on the passenger side. And all other fuses in that fuse box. from there, check your driver kick panel fuses. im willing to bet on it being a fuse too. how old is your alternator?

stanprophet

All of them.

But I would start with ones like the EFI.

Laying the spark plug on the block you will not have a white or blue spark most of the time. There is likely something else going on that is causing the problem. Since there are 2 variables that are involved here since it last ran, single digit weather, and a battery replacement. It is more likely something happened on the battery replacement, like a fuse blew.

Now it is entirely possible that there has been a coincidental failure, but I have watched many people chase their tails to find a blown fuse after hundreds of dollars in parts

I have had vehicle's with no injector pulse that would not run off of ether or other flammable liquids. Since you have pretty much replaced most of the ignition parts, I am thinking that it may be something else.

stanprophet

Ok so the timing light works on another truck. If the fuses check out good, then lets look at the ignition side. The spark may be too weak to fire with the dense mixture after compression. Check the timing light at the coil and see if it lights. If it does you may have a secondary ignition breakdown in the cap or rotor.

Let us know on the fuses, and the light on the coil.

joeblo223

All the fuses I checked were good I don't know where there are any fuseable links . I tried the timeing light on the coil wire and still nothing

87blackbeauty

Did you pull the distributor at any point?

Replace the cap and rotor?

I don't have a ton of experience with things like this but if starting fluid doesn't get it going, I'd guess your timing is off or there's a fuse somewhere that's messed up.

By the way, a fusible link is the wire that runs from the battery straight to the fuse box for one.

Do you know your spark plugs are even good? Gapped correctly?

Are all your plugs in the right place for the firing order?

Start simple, then get complicated.

Maybe try to pull engine check codes?

Like I said, not much experience here. Just throwing out everything that came to mind...

By the way, it's always healthy to remind yourself that an engine only needs three things to run: fuel, air, and spark. If you can guarantee two, the other can be figured out.

joeblo223

Tried cap and rotor and the main fuseable link has been bypassed as for the plugs it ran fine before and the ones I checked were gaped correctly and fireing order is correct

stanprophet

Ok, if you have an old spark plug and a set of jumper cables I can tell you how to build a redneck ignition tester. Take an old plug and cut the ground electrode off with a hack saw. Use a file to square flatten the point of the main electrode. Use the jumper cable and clamp the threaded portion of the plug with one end, and hook the other end to a good ground. Plug the plug into the spark plug wire and have someone crank the engine.

This will perform a stress test on the ignition system, if it can jump to ground over that gap it is not ignition related and you need to check elsewhere. Simple test that should no cost a dime.

Or you can buy one NGK plug from an RX7 at the parts store and use the jumper cables.

ETA: Effectively you are making one of these.
Hope that help clarify things

cccp

i had a similar problem on my 4runner it had a weak spark and would not fire up. I replaced the ignitor and it fired right up. A month later the same problem. It was an intermittent problem where it would run fine and than all of a sudden would not start. After sitting for a while it would fire. Could never figure it out still bugs me to this day good luck

scope103

He checked the timing light and it works, he tried it on the coil wire and got no flash. So the coil is not firing. Until he gets that resolved, he doesn't need an ignition tester (redneck or otherwise -- remember, he has a timing light), the plug gap doesn't matter, the cap and wires don't matter, and it is not surprising that ether won't fire.

So it could be a bad distributor or igniter (or even a bad coil), but most likely (as others have pointed out) you've blown a fuse. The good news is that the coil is powered directly from AM1 (40amp under the hood) through the ignition switch. Check for 12v on to coil + terminal with key "ON". http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b...12onvehicl.pdf

stanprophet

Some of the inductive probes for timing lights will act differently on some ignition wires. The ignition tester is to rule out weather it is, or isn't a secondary ignition problem or not. The timing light probe uses inductive capacitance, high quality wires, and poor quality timing lights can give misleading results.

The only way to be sure that there is a problem with the secondary output is to check it with a ignition tester or an inductive probe on a Oscilloscope. Assuming it is a problem because the timing light will not flash, means he could be wasting his time chasing a ghost. Now granted it may very well be a primary side problem, and could be a high voltage drop across a wire. I have even seen fusses blow to the point they still show good on a test light. But put a load on them and there is a huge voltage drop from heating. It is one of the reasons I always voltage drop test fuses with a multimeter now when problems like this arise.

It is always best to be 100% sure there is a problem before trying to diagnose something. When I am at work I get paid just over 1 hour to preform crank no start diagnostics, you learn to made sure there is or isn't a problem with a system. I get paid that time weather it takes me 5 minutes or 5 hours. And trust me, I have had my butt kicked many times by making an assumption or overlooking something as simple as a fuse. And I agree it is probably something very simple.

alex_johnson2

Don't forget to check the ignition coil. If you have an ohmmeter you can check the resistances against the FSM. A bad coil can provide a weak spark and they can fail suddenly (I know since I had one fail while I was driving and figuring out what failed was a real pain).

If you can find one, an adjustable ignition spark tester is a nice tool to use since it will provide information on the actual voltage.

joeblo223

I was looking in to this still didn't. Get it running have 12v at coil still have spark but timeing light won't work some body told me it could be magnetic pickup in the distributor itself . This is the only part I haven't tryed replacing can't find any fuses blown is the distributor something to look into or am I wasting my time

87blackbeauty

It's worth a shot to put in a different distributor. Know anyone near you that would be willing to let you use theirs just for a test? That would be free and tell you if you have a problem with it.

joeblo223

I have a full doaner engine that ran fine when I took it out of the truck 4 months ago so I should be able to use that distributor if it fits it is a 91 and the truck I am working on is an 89 but I think it's the same distributor

87blackbeauty

I'm pretty sure it'll fit. I've never actually worked on a v6 yota but the distributors for the two gens of 22re look the same so I'm going by that.

Austin Marr

Slap it on there. They're identical