Car not starting! Help! Options

[Cexlica]

How can you tell if your timing belt has broken? Will the car act like normal? or will the car run really crappy if the timing belt is broken?? 1996 Celica 7afe, The car has Air, has Spark, the only thing is I think the timing belt is broken, but prior to the car not starting, the car was driving perfect EXCEPT a check engine light.

One more thing, where is the fuel pump fuse?? If not a broken timing belt, I'm thinking it could be the fuel pump fuse, but where is it located?

The car is cranking, just not starting, battery and alternator is fine, starter is fine. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Car is at my work place and need to get it running a.s.a.p, thanks!

This post has been edited by Cexlica: Apr 10, 2008 - 11:01 PM

[bccentaur3]

Maybe your fuel pump is out. Thats what happened to me and silly me I thought the timing belt broke. Just check to see if your fuel pump is out.

[D-Man]

x2 i just replaced a fuel pump, had a hole in it'd diaphragm. it happends~ i'd roll my dice at that, remove the line and see if it shoots out fuel when attempting to start it.

[GriffGirl]

uh, what was the CEL code?


I don't think the engine would crank if your timing belt was broken, IIRC

[D-Man]

what is IIRC?

[Cexlica]

^IIRC stands for If I recall correctly and/or If I remembered correctly

Update: It is NOT the fuel pump, I have narrowed it down to 3 things, Fuel Filter, Clogged Injectors, Fuel pump relay fuse. <---Where is the fuel pump relay located in the fuse box???

Timing belt is fine.

[bccentaur3]

Look under the fuse box cover. It should tell you where it is.

[Cexlica]

I found the EFI relay, it's black, right? How do I tell if it needs replacing? It looks like all the wires are still entact.

Anyways, I just changed the fuel filter, and the car still does not start. I am completely stumped, i have no idea what is wrong now, the only thing i could think of are clogged injectors. But, the car was driving fine prior to not starting, shouldn't clogged injectors make the car run really crappy? Well, the car was driving fine before this happened.

Once again, the fuel pump is working, fuel filter changed, timing belt is ok, air filter is ok, spark is ok, efi relay looks ok, battery is good. Car cranks but wouldn't start.


No idea what the CEL could be, car was driving excellent even with the CEL came out, which was about 2 weeks before the car didn't start. Thanks!!

This post has been edited by Cexlica: Apr 13, 2008 - 9:02 PM

[bccentaur3]

It could be your ignitor. I honestly don't think that your injectors are clogged to the point that the car won't start. You won't be able to tell if your relay is good or bad. You can find someone with a celica and use their relay and see if the car fires up. If you find out that that didn't help, it has to be something electrical. If the car was running fine before and all of the sudden decided to stop, I don't know. Take off the distributor and take the ignition control module to autozone and have them check out the ohms on that thing.

[tonytutino]

what year is your car man?

[mr-belowaverage]

Spray something combustible into the intake plenum and see if it catches for a minute. Check the fuel rails for pressure to rule out delivery.

[GriffGirl]

Changing your fuel filter would not enable your car to start. I can't possibly imagine a fuel filter that could be so clogged that your car wouldn't start to begin with.

It sounds like you have an ignition problem. My bet would be a bad ignitor coil, dead distributor, or near-dead starter. Something like that. I'm not a mechanic though.

What does your car sound like when you try to start it? Does it sound normal, but just doesn't catch? Or is there any kind of grinding sound?

[D-Man]

Spray something combustible into the intake plenum and see if it catches for a minute. Check the fuel rails for pressure to rule out delivery.

Yeah; like Nitroglycerin

It's easyer to trouble shoot a problemed car that is spread across a few miles, because you know what you'll need.

A new car.

[Cexlica]

The car is in the shop at the moment, funny thing is the mechanic cranked it up and knew exactly what it was. I was like WTF, I was worrying for a whole week what the problem was, and here it took you 2 seconds to find the problem, lol.

It turns out to the the timing, the timing belt is still intact, but it jumped a couple teeth.

[D-Man]

oh, i hate when that happens... i sold a car because of that one time; when i was younger... only got like $150 bucks for it though for the shape of the car, i was actualy happy

[cochise]

The car is in the shop at the moment, funny thing is the mechanic cranked it up and knew exactly what it was. I was like WTF, I was worrying for a whole week what the problem was, and here it took you 2 seconds to find the problem, lol.

It turns out to the the timing, the timing belt is still intact, but it jumped a couple teeth.

If it jumped once it will do it again. replace the belt and check the timing gears also. If they are worn replace them.