Hey guys. I posted in the 2nd gen forum but was hoping to get a little more help in here.

My 86 GXL isn't getting any spark. I drove to work yesterday morning and all was fine. I went to go to lunch and the car wouldn't start. The engine spins and has compression but the tach doesn't bounce at all when trying to start up. This led me to the trailing coil and ignition in general. I've been reading around and trying things I as find them.

What I've done so far is:
-Cleaned battery terminals
-Checked all fuses under the hood and under the dash with Continuity tester. All checked out.
-Pulled the leading plug and spun the motor to see if it had spark. (nope)
-Checked the connector (the white plug) at the Leading coil for voltage, had 11 volts.
-Unplugged the main relay behind the T coil and plugged it in, it was clicking as I did this.
-Checked the resistance of the plug on the CAS. I got 161 on one side and 162 on the other.
-Took the CAS out and with the key on, spun the CAS. No spark.

So I'm a little stumped on what to do next. I was hoping someone in the area might be able to chime in. I'm also hoping that I can find someone local with the part (if needed). I'm guessing it might be the ECU, CAS, or the main relay.

So any help would be appreciated. And if you happen to have any of the parts lying around, shoot me a PM with a price. Thanks.

-Wes

 

It does sound like a signal problem to me. Can you jump the signal wire with some kind of trigger to simulate switching in the ECU?

Find out the voltage and stuff then make a makeshift distributor to test it.

Or just try someones ECU.

 

Yea I guess I'm just gonna start parts swapping. I'm running out of patience messing with it.

Anyone in the Greenville, Spartanburg, Gaffney area have N326 ECU I can try out? or a spare CAS, or hell, the main relay. I'm stumped and this is my daily driver, I can't have it sitting here at work doing nothing. PM me or call me, 8649092666, the name's Wes.

Thanks,
Wes

 

try unplugging the afm, if your car fires up then dies replace the afm w/ a known good one. my symptoms were exactly like yours and it was a bad afm. first time it happened, the plug simply came lose and then secondly... it went bad out of nowhere one day. lol.

let us know how that works out.

 

I gave that a try and still had no go. plugged it back in and with the key on, I can push the flap in and the fuel pump runs, but still no sparking action.

I took the voltmeter to some plugs on the ecu this morning before work. I'm getting about 11.4 volts on certain plugs on the ecu harness. I didn't have a diagram with me at the time so I'm not sure what I was testing. There were other plugs getting around 2.5 volts. Not sure what volts I should be seeing so I can't really use this info yet. Any other ideas would be great.

Thanks.

 

Well, it was the main relay after all. Only half of it was working with power applied. 2 paper clips later and she fired right up. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

glad u got it running.

 

Glad you got it fixed man!