6G Celicas Forums

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take off the timing belt cover and look. pretty simple thing to do.

I'll that that after class tomorrow and I just hope it warms up.

Same thing happened to me, it turned out to be a loose ground wire that was preventing my car from starting.

I dont understand how a ground wire can go loose? I didn't do any crazy driving.

Vibrations are enough. Lock-tite is your friend.

the reason why i dont think its the timing belt is because if your belt snapped your car will shut off immediately. Like BOOM dead.

when an alternator belt snaps you run on the battery until your battery dies. This will take a while as your battery drains and your computer and ignition system slowly fails, you feel loss of power. I had this happen to me and had to floor it in first gear to slowly crawl my way back to my house.

easy way to check if your timing belt snapped is take off the distributor cap ( 3 scews) and crank the engine. If the rotor in there spins, then your belt is fine. If it doesnt not move then your timing belt has snapped.

Your engine ground can also cause this problem. Check the thick cable that goes from your valve cover to the radiator support. If in, doubt hook a jumper cable to the engine and the ground. See if it starts?

How does your car sound when you try to start it? Does it crank really fast or is it a slow unwilling crank?

exactly. if a belt breaks the car will just die, no abnormal noises or anything, just dead. if a timing CHAIN breaks you will hear it and it won't sound good.

Makes sense. The distributer is attached to the intake cam so if he rotates it by the rotor and it moves - the belt snapped.
BTW - You keep saying the car won't crank. Do you really mean that or do you mean it will crank but won't turn over? If it won't crank it's not the belt. If the belt broke then the crank will turn with the starter but the cams won't so you will not get spark to the engine via the not turning distributer.
Can you clarify that point?

Well the car cranks, but won't turn over, sorry . Well I got out to my car this morning, still cold and tried to turn the car on and it seems as if the battery is dead. After class I'll jump the car, but the battery probably died because I had my hazards on the whole night. I do the distributer cap after class too, hopefully won't get frost bite.

Turn over is cranking...turning over isn't starting.

If you left the hazards on all night your battery is def. dead.

This post has been edited by Supersprynt: Jan 30, 2008 - 11:44 AM

yeah, very stupid, but I'll check my timing belt and any loose grounds later and keep you guys updated.

-45 tonight in MN. Good luck man.

that's what propane is for roasty toasty in my garage. so what happened to the 40 degree weather. where do you live i can prob give ya a hand on diagnosis?

This post has been edited by rjbibeau: Jan 30, 2008 - 12:32 PM

I live in Fridley.

I have work tonight so I won't get to work on my car until tomorrow. Give me a call if you want to help. Tomorrow should be warmer.

If the celicas are interference and he snapped a timing belt, than pretty much you can assume there's now bent valves, damaged pistons, etc., etc. I have a 96 GT I picked up almost 2 weeks ago (first celica ever) and I don't even know if they are interference engines. My talon was.

5sfe are not interference motors

it is very simple to tell if you have a snapped timing belt.
pull off the distributor cap.
try and start the motor.
if the rotor spins, the belt is still connected.
if it dont, time for a timing belt job.

Remove the distributor cap and spin the motor, if the distributor shaft turns the cam belt is intact, however it could have jumped a few teeth which would put your valve timing out and cause a loss of power. Broken belt!!! it cannot run at all.

From my experience, I've seen a car lose power and won't turn on again after your water pump goes. Also, Fuel Pump. Alternator is pretty easy to test because your car does not need the alternator to turn on, assuming you have a good battery, you can test the alternator.