This is indeed a good time for lemonade

[brynndragon]

My car has died. The starter motor does its thing quite well, but the engine won't turn over (well, one attempt it almost caught at the very end, but died practically before I noticed it catching). My not-quite-educated guess is it's a fuel issue, meaning it's a problem with the pump (failure), a problem with the injectors (crud or failure), a problem with the fuel line (vacuum leak), or a problem with the tank (crud in tank blocking intake). None of these problems are within my capacity to test for, much less repair, so off to Funhondas goes Nekokaburi. However, Chang is out until the 14th.

This would make me a very sad panda, but for my beloved Ankai (and the lovely wsmith, who gave me a ride to grab Ankai). For the next while, I will have my bike as my sole means of transportation. This is new and interesting to me; we'll see how it works. I'm guessing, unless we get some *really* nasty rainstorms, it will work very well indeed.

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you have the situation well in hand... but if you want me to take a look at Nekokaburi on Sunday, I can.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Well, it's at Funhondas and I'm going on a ride with friends today, so while I do appreciate the offer I'm not going to be able to take you up on it.

[richspk.livejournal.com]

My guess is that it's not a fuel issue, but Chang'll find out. A good way to tell, usually, is to disconnect the hose to the air cleaner and spray ether (aka starting fluid) into the intake. Try starting the car. If the spark is fine, the car will start right up and then die after a couple seconds, when it's burned all the ether. That means you most likely aren't getting gas to the combustion chamber. If it won't start on ether, then fuel isn't the problem.

You say that the starter motor works fine, but the engine won't turn over. That's contradictory; if the starter motor works fine, then it turns the engine over. I think you mean the engine turns, but won't fire (except once, for an instant).

Good luck!

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I probably should have used the word "cranks" rather than "turns over" - the idea being that there's definitely electricity in the system. I'd be really surprised if it was the spark plugs, I put in high quality new ones around 5k miles ago. I replaced the fuel filter around that time as well. The one time when it fired for a brief second before dying is what makes me think it's a fuel issue.

Well, that plus the odd "idle to off" behavior it exhibits sometimes when trying to start it under very specific circumstances (70+ degrees outside, very short trip (< 5-10 min), very short time off (also < 5-10 min) - this happens when going to grab lunch to eat at work, for example). It will start like normal, with initial RPMs about 1k above idle, but when it tries to go down to idle speed it instead falls all the way to nothing. Giving it enough gas to keep it at the higher RPMs immediately on startup, then slowly letting the RPMs drop to idle prevents that behavior - it really sounds like vapor lock, but this is a fuel-injected car. So I think there's something screwy with the fuel delivery system somewhere, and it finally got bad enough to keep the car from running. We'll see.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, to me that suggests wonky coils or sensors. Fuel injected cars simply don't get vapor lock, but it sounds like you know that.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

Sending Nekokaburi lots of white goddamn healing light. That would be sad if your car *died* died.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Naw, Nekokaburi's way too young to really die. She just wants some attention, is all ;P.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

I know she's too young to die! I haven't gotten to drive her NEARLY enough...