I got a deal on an O/T car because it died on the girl who had it and stranded her and ticked her off. Finally got a chance to put a battery on it and lo and behold I had memories of the Buick I had with a corporate Pontiac 301 in it - the starter engages and you can hear that electrical whine as it tries to turn the motor, but it's physically blocked somehow. The last car that did that to me, the 301, I took it apart for the hell of it knowing damn well it had thrown a rod - to find it had thrown two and one broke in three pieces. But I knew it because it started hammering pretty good and I tried to see if I could nurse it home from college anyways. This is a Chevy 305, but I'm sure they're not immune from that. I just wanted to throw it out there before I assume it's terminal, in case there's any other possible cause. She said no noises, anything, the car just quit and wouldn't do anything. I imagine if I put a wrench on the crank pulley bolt and find I can go one way, but not the other, it would confirm the crank's blocked by broken parts. If anyone's curious it's a really clean '86 MC SS, with T-tops - a mullet-mobile, for sure, about all it needs is a 3 and a Goodwrench on the side to be a Nascar clone. I jumped on it because I wanted to use the frame for one under a Rambler, but it's too nice to cut up, I think after some research of eBay auctions that with another motor stuck in it I could sell it for enough to buy a running, driving western Rambler and have it shipped back here, if I want a Rambler that bad. Can't be that hard to just stick a good 350 in it and detail it up some.
Maybe the cylinder is hydrauliced from a bad head gasket, pull the plugs and see if antifreeze comes out.
put a breaker bar on the crank bolt and see if you can roll the engine that way, try going both ways.
Find out what she means by "the car just quit" 1) died while driving or 2) shut off, won't re-start. If so, see if the starters locked up. Could be that simple. Or a belt driven accessory locked up will prevent cranking. Or the usual poor electrical/starter mess.
I'd find any running V8 sbc donor I could for cheap and swap the engine in. Sell the mullet machine and buy something better.
if it's a serpentine belt, pull the belt off, see what happens...a shop I know of once had an engine halfway out because it was locked up before they discovered the bad alternator
I agree one hunnert percent! pull the plugs and hit the starter. Of all the tests to run,this ones free!
she said it just quit ... hmmmm outa gas oil a/f or the radio station preset is not working on FM.... P.S check if the park brakE is on too GOOD LUCK
maybe she confused the temp gauge with the gas gauge? kinda reminds me of when I worked for Advance.......a lady came in one day with a `95? T-Bird....she told us that her friend told her that her car sounded like it was low on oil.....and she didn`t know what kind to use.....she then said (no joke) that she didn`t know cars used oil.....and when we told her that they do and that it needed to be changed every 3mos/3k miles......she said she guesses she better do it because she`s had the car for 4-years!!!!!! When she started the car it sounded like a diesel.....it ended up only having 1-quart of oil in it.......how it still ran I may never know!!!!
We were convinced that the engine locked up on my 90 Chevy P/U. Absolutely no warning. Turned it off and it seemed to be locked up when we tried to start it again. Same deal...starter engaged but couldn't turn the engine. Lots of straining but no oumph. Just for giggles we put a different battery in it and bingo...started right up. Don't assume anything. I've seen too many wild goose chases to assume anything. A systematic elimination of possibilities will save so much time and money.
Well I have a good one, My X mother-in -law said her transmission was slipping so my X Father-in-law went and bought a rebuilt and brought them over for me to exchange. I said ' lets take it for a drive before I swap it out so I will know what its doing in case I want to rebuild the core my self some day'. Well when it gets up to the point when its time to shift it just kinda started slowing down. I noticed that if i let off the gas then it would go ahead and shift and start speeding up again. I put a new fuel pump on it and fixed it. Got a rebuilt tranny out of the deal. Of course X brother in law needed it before it did. Damned X's kept me busy all the time!
yep, one of the guys at work did that years ago, too..... btw, drop the starter and see if the crank'll turn. i've had ford starters get "stuck" and act like the eng is seized....just a thought
A few years ago, one of the local police departments changed engines in a '94 Caprice for the same reason.
Had a seemingly similar problem with a driver. Checked the fluid level in the battery. It was quite low. Since the truck had failed to start and was resting in a grocery store parking lot, I went in and bought a gallon of distilled water. Added water. Came back an hour later and it started right up. Drove the truck home and used the battery until winter.
I got a fastback 69 mustang pretty much the same way...my wifes cousin could not get it to start even though it turned over....he got frustrated with it and gave it to me. I spent about half an hour checking normal stuff before I figured out it was out of gas. I gave him half when I sold it!(no he didn't want it back...I checked first)
Basically, the best answer to this post which is kind of foolish to begin with is.... Get some basic tools and go diagnose by process of elimination. Diagnosis and car repair is not looking at a car that makes a similar noise to your cousin's friend's old Camaro from high school and assuming its the same problem by guesswork.
a guy gave me a ride on lawn mower that wouldn't run, i put gas in it and it fired on the second pull, used it for a couple of years, same guy gave me a push mower that he couldn't start, i asked him if he ran into a rock just before it died, he said no a steel stake. i replace the flywheel key and ran that mower for 5 years. lots of times i have a vehicle that is running crapy or just wont start, so i check everything over that i think it could be and without fixing anything it just seems to fix itself and runs fine, like i scared it.
I worked at a GM dealer for a few years. I was amazed at the amount of 3.8 V6 motors I saw "hydo-locked" from bad intake gaskets that ran fine after a starter and intake gaskets.
Yeah, I passed on a 4.3 Astro Van the same day because the oil was kinda brown and it ran rough, I could see that turning into a headache in a hurry even though it wasn't smoking that I noticed - I looked at another one a while back that was so full of water it barely even started and that one didn't really smoke once it got going, either. This car has regular belts and the alternator looks new; I did check and the pulley on it moves. She was driving down the road - probably with the CD player cranked up - and it died, I asked if it made any noises or anything and she said no. Girl is somewhat mechanically inclined - hell she rides a Harley all summer - but no expert. When I got to it someone she had look at it had pulled six of the plugs out of it, and told her the motor was bad - but I have no idea who looked at it. The oil in the car had even been changed less than 2000 miles back, going by the change sticker in the windshield. Oil in it was black, but pretty low - but the dipstick seemed like the end was broken off, it seemed too short for a Chevy V8. I tried to crank it right there before I bought it, but the solenoid just clicked like the battery was low - this was my battery - so I stuck that on charge overnight and brought it with me when I took the car out for storage. The only things that look obvious underhood is the valve cover gaskets starting to leak and a lot of oil blown out of the filter/sensor adapter, all over it, all over the firewall and part of the brake booster. Like I said in the first post, I imagine putting a wrench on the crank pulley bolt and turning it will answer the question for sure. If it's stuck from a broken rod either it won't turn, or it will turn one way and back until it hits again and stop. If it won't turn at all then it could be hydrolocked. The plugs that were out were pretty black, but no signs of trouble otherwise. I'd have used the fan to turn it, but you can't with a clutch fan, and I can't get enough leverage on anything else without a wrench. Given I can get a Chevy motor for like $150 at one of the you-pull-it yards, it may just be cheaper to grab one there than even to change out head gaskets. Of course you trade one set of unknowns for another, but if I was going to dump money in a motor I'd do it to a 350 before a 305. It tempts me to see if the motor in my storage van is a 400 small block, too - I think it's set up, but that would be worth taking apart and messing with.
6 paragraphs and Im still not sure if you have turned the motor over with a ratchet yet, and if not, why not?
Didn't read very hard then. By the time I got back to messing with this I'd towed it out there 80 miles and after dropping it unloaded a 250+ pound candy vending machine, and damn near threw my back out lifting it to get it into my storage van - I was tired, it was raining, and I was sick of screwing around in general. Plus my truck went thump thump thump all the way out and I had that vibration to figure out first, which meant rounding up a couple more tires I could throw on and rule out broken belts in the tires. So I took long enough to throw a hot battery on this car and see what happened and obviously something's keeping the motor from turning over. This car sounds the same as the motor I blew up personally years ago (pieces to which are on my desk now), just thought I'd throw it out there and see if there's any other possibilities I'm not thinking of or can't rule out and check all of them when I get back out there. It's a $125 car, and a 305 motor - it just ain't that important to diagnose the problem this instant. But I hadn't thought about a head gasket leak, so now I know to pop the last two plugs out and see if it turns then.
The Jalopy Journal
