DirtRoads
Uninformed
It's raining, cold, and dark here, so I'll offer this up for discussion.
Almost 10 years ago, I bought a 1.6 16v from crazybluerider that he treated as if it was his baby. Regular maintenance performed, only driven to church on sunday, shifted before 3500rpm each and every time (
). I had this engine in my Samurai for years with only minimal issues that you would expect. I installed the engine one weekend when I was about 21 and had no idea what I was doing, and pretty much ran it as is up until mid 2020 when it started to get picky on starts. Sometimes it would crank, sometimes it wouldn't.
After plenty of reflection, I finally went through the engine installation and did it "right." I have a Trail Tough wiring harness, new MAF, new intake air sensor, new MAP sensor (never had one before) and just all. kinds. of stuff. When I finished up, she ran great. Cranked immediately, no hesitations at all. 100% confidence.
Until recently. Now, every so often, this thing just will not crank. It is intermittent, it is rare, but when it happens you cannot fight it. In this situation, you can crank on the engine for 2-3 minutes at a time and it will spit and sputter, but simply will not run. The last time I had this problem, it was easy to track to the IAT or coolant temp sensor and the problem was more consistent.
Now here is the crazy thing: if you pull start it, it will crank in 2 seconds without any hesitation as if there is not a problem at all. If I jump it off of my tow rig with a bigass alternator that idles up when it senses a load for full send jump starting, it starts up pretty quickly.
Disclaimer, this thing smokes and misses until it is warm, then it runs great. When it isn't being a dick, it starts right TF up and sounds pretty good. So I'm inclined to think that the internals aren't the problem with it being as intermittent as it is (rebuild is in the works but a ways out). Plugs/cap/rotor/battery are all new.
Place your bets.
TL/DR: Sometimes, my 1.6 16v only wants to be pull started and I don't know why. Thinking a starter with internal parasitic voltage draw that causes a weak spark or something, but have no fawking clue.
Almost 10 years ago, I bought a 1.6 16v from crazybluerider that he treated as if it was his baby. Regular maintenance performed, only driven to church on sunday, shifted before 3500rpm each and every time (
). I had this engine in my Samurai for years with only minimal issues that you would expect. I installed the engine one weekend when I was about 21 and had no idea what I was doing, and pretty much ran it as is up until mid 2020 when it started to get picky on starts. Sometimes it would crank, sometimes it wouldn't. After plenty of reflection, I finally went through the engine installation and did it "right." I have a Trail Tough wiring harness, new MAF, new intake air sensor, new MAP sensor (never had one before) and just all. kinds. of stuff. When I finished up, she ran great. Cranked immediately, no hesitations at all. 100% confidence.
Until recently. Now, every so often, this thing just will not crank. It is intermittent, it is rare, but when it happens you cannot fight it. In this situation, you can crank on the engine for 2-3 minutes at a time and it will spit and sputter, but simply will not run. The last time I had this problem, it was easy to track to the IAT or coolant temp sensor and the problem was more consistent.
Now here is the crazy thing: if you pull start it, it will crank in 2 seconds without any hesitation as if there is not a problem at all. If I jump it off of my tow rig with a bigass alternator that idles up when it senses a load for full send jump starting, it starts up pretty quickly.
Disclaimer, this thing smokes and misses until it is warm, then it runs great. When it isn't being a dick, it starts right TF up and sounds pretty good. So I'm inclined to think that the internals aren't the problem with it being as intermittent as it is (rebuild is in the works but a ways out). Plugs/cap/rotor/battery are all new.
Place your bets.
TL/DR: Sometimes, my 1.6 16v only wants to be pull started and I don't know why. Thinking a starter with internal parasitic voltage draw that causes a weak spark or something, but have no fawking clue.
. A little scared to test. But with it being intermittent and such a dealbreaker when it does decide to happen, I'm a little more keen to ignore the compression considering how well the engine acts when it decides to.