Lost ignition while driving

[zebrex]

Have fun with the CRANK BOLT!!!!!!!

The front sixty-k will should take no more than an eight hour day if you even just slightly capable with a set of wrenches.

The Crank bolt is by far the worst part of this job, My buddy and I were unable to get it off with an impact, a breaker bar, or a breaker bar and really long cheeter pipe. what we ended up using was a breaker bar and the starter. Now I have a bent breaker bar but I managed to get the bolt off.

**** it took me longer to change the O-rings on the AC compressor than do the front sixty-K. They dont make wrenches that are shaped right to get to those bolts.

good luck

 

[jkichline]

Well,
I'm gonna start tomorrow morning. I just ordered the parts this afternoon. Turns out they won't get here until late next week. Possibly not until early the following week. So at least I have time to get it all apart. For the front 60k only, cost was $300 not including misc stuff (coolant, carb cleaner, etc.). I'm gonna just go at it a couple hours at a time. I have a ton of other things going on here at the same time. Fortunately, I have other cars to drive until I fix this one back up.

 

[jkichline]

I started this morning. I spent about 1.5 hours on it so far. I got the splash shield off, the crank bolt, battery and tray, and the engine roll damper. How my doin? Crank bolt took me about 2 minutes. The battery tray took me 20. I'm guessing that should have been the other way around!? :laugh_ti:

 

[zebrex]

what did you use to get the crank bolt off? yea I can get my battery tray off in about 2 minutes. you will find that almost everything that you do to this car requires the battery tray to come off. You will get very good at it.

 

[jkichline]

I used a breaker bar. Rested it against the frame and cranked the starter for about 1/4 second. The thing came right off. My battery tray is not slotted so the bolts had to come all the way out. PITA!

 

[zebrex]

yep thats the exact same way I did it

 

[jkichline]

having trouble getting the actual pully off. I thought I had the right puller. I did not.. I just bought one and I'm gonna try it out in the morning. Any advice here would be appreciated... Finally got high speed internet after 13 years of dial up. Had it hooked up for 12 hours and the hard drive nearly crashed. I got it running now but its crippled and I need a new hard drive RIGHT NOW!! Yes, I backed up the files. IF you don't hear from me for a while... you'll know why...

 

[cleansho93]

I had my friend who is an ASE Ford tech do my front 60k last weekend. He took off my crank bolt in about 10 seconds or less with an impact and my garage air compressor. No difficulty what so ever. Im impressed now with his work as this seems to be a quite difficult task.

 

[jkichline]

well I got the crank pully off but I'm an idiot. I used two different thread bolts. Naturally, the one bolt snapped in half and is stuck in the pully . I don't have a set of easy outs but now's a good time to buy a set... I also got the timing belt off and the cam pullies. I'm about 5 hours into it now. Next is getting out the cam and crank seals...

 

[cleansho93]

It will be well worth the work. I am confident that this will fix your loss of ignition. I have been driving for a week now without the car stalling once. It has started up on the first crank every time since my front 60k last weekend. Whats interesting though is that many people point to the water pump leaking on the CPS as its cause of failure. This was not my case. My water pump was fine and is not leaking at all from what we could tell. Im not losing any coolant. My crankshaft seal was leaking quite bad though and slinging oil all over my CPS (the sensor was covered in oil). We replaced the timing belt, CPS and crankshaft seal. I have been problem free since . I originally thought that my oil drips were from my valve covers leaking (which they are leaking) but the drips were coming from that front seal. It hasnt left a spot since.

 

[jkichline]

It will be well worth the work. I am confident that this will fix your loss of ignition. I have been driving for a week now without the car stalling once. It has started up on the first crank every time since my front 60k last weekend. Whats interesting though is that many people point to the water pump leaking on the CPS as its cause of failure. This was not my case. My water pump was fine and is not leaking at all from what we could tell. Im not losing any coolant. My crankshaft seal was leaking quite bad though and slinging oil all over my CPS (the sensor was covered in oil). We replaced the timing belt, CPS and crankshaft seal. I have been problem free since . I originally thought that my oil drips were from my valve covers leaking (which they are leaking) but the drips were coming from that front seal. It hasnt left a spot since.

That's good to hear! I am really anxious to get all this done. Problem is, I only have a couple hours at a time to spend on it. The more I dig in, the more glad I am that I'm doing it. I'm pretty sure that this will fix me up. I got the CPS code. I think I may have found my problem to be in my wiring (not sure though). There are two connectors to the CPS. The connector that only has one wire was missing quite a bit of insulation. I don't know what that wire carries but it may have been hitting ground when it wasn't supposed to. It also gives me a chance to clean up the engine compartment (right now it looks terrible!!) and fix the bad exhaust leak. The leak is at the joint after the cats. I loosened it up today and it took VERY LITTLE torque to loosen the bolts. I'm told you usually have to torch those bolts off!

All in all... so far its going pretty good considering this is the first front wheel drive car I ever worked on. This sideways engine mounting thing is tough to get used to!

 

[cleansho93]

One word of advise when you install the new cps. Routing the cps plug up and behind the timing cover backplate is a real b**ch . We finally had to bend the plate forward to make space to squeeze the plug through. It bent back very easily and you would never know it was moved. Saved a lot of trouble and cursing . Funny thing is I never did get a code relating to the cps or ignition system at all.

 

[jkichline]

One word of advise when you install the new cps. Routing the cps plug up and behind the timing cover backplate is a real b**ch . We finally had to bend the plate forward to make space to squeeze the plug through. It bent back very easily and you would never know it was moved. Saved a lot of trouble and cursing . Funny thing is I never did get a code relating to the cps or ignition system at all.

No code!! I hate computers. They only tell you stuff half the time. you have to figure it out for yourself the rest of the time. It took me a year and a half to trouble shoot my trans am for a misfire under load. Turned out it was a bad injector.

Yeah... Installing the new CPS had me a little concerned. But I'm thinking that I should be able to position it before I put the timing cover back on. I was going to hang it with a peice of tape from the engine while I install stuff. That way it'll just be there BEFORE the timing cover. I think that'll work.

Did your friend have any trouble with replacing the seals. I started to remove one but I'm gonna go out and get the right tools first. I was trying use some other crap I had laying around in the garage but I didn't want to damage any shafts. That would be a nightmare!

 

[Rockledge]

The way a lot of people remove the seals is to carefully drill a tiny hole through the seal, then you thread a small sheetrock screw into the hole (just enough for the threads to grab good), and then you pull (or pry) out the seal using the screw.

 

[cleansho93]

No code!! I hate computers. They only tell you stuff half the time. you have to figure it out for yourself the rest of the time. It took me a year and a half to trouble shoot my trans am for a misfire under load. Turned out it was a bad injector.

Yeah... Installing the new CPS had me a little concerned. But I'm thinking that I should be able to position it before I put the timing cover back on. I was going to hang it with a peice of tape from the engine while I install stuff. That way it'll just be there BEFORE the timing cover. I think that'll work.

Did your friend have any trouble with replacing the seals. I started to remove one but I'm gonna go out and get the right tools first. I was trying use some other crap I had laying around in the garage but I didn't want to damage any shafts. That would be a nightmare!

We didnt replace my camshaft seals as they seemed to be fine, no leaks what so ever. He used the technique listed above for removing the crankshaft seal. He threaded in two screws and pulled on them with vice grips and the seal popped right out. It did take some effort though.

 

[jkichline]

The way a lot of people remove the seals is to carefully drill a tiny hole through the seal, then you thread a small sheetrock screw into the hole (just enough for the threads to grab good), and then you pull (or pry) out the seal using the screw.

Thanks man. I like that idea. I should have been able to think of that myself... That sounds so simple. I've done plenty of gaskets but I've never replaced seals. How far into the seal is too far? Will I damage the cam or crank if I go in to far?