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1994 Hard start and dies on accel

Hi all,

Hopefully the collective can help here.

I have a 1994 Plymouth voyager which has been running okay. I put brakes on it yesterday and after letting it down off of the jack, I notice extremely hard starting. Cranks but no fire. Actually it cranks and after i release the key it would sputter a bit and die. Eventually it starts and runs but it chokes and dies if I give it too much gas. After driving it around the block a few times it eventually dies and is very hard to restart. Once started, any amount of throttle kills it.

I managed to limp it to the Goodyear service center and had them look at it this morning. They just called and told me to take it to the dealer because they can't figure out what's wrong with it.

I can hear the fuel pump running but it's pretty loud. Goodyear says that Fuel pressure is okay but this surely sounds like a fuel starvation problem to me.

The specific symptoms are : Very hard to start (but cranks strong so the battery is okay). Once started, almost any amount of throttle will kill the engine. Note that at first it was just large applications of throttle that cause problems but as the minutes went by it got worse and worse until any application of throttle was enough to kill it. It will idle, but barely. It also smokes but it's grey smoke and the car does burn oil.

Thanks in advance. I really don't want to spend the money to have the dealer look at this old thing.

Reply to
jelliott25
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What engine does your Voyager have? Could be any number of things depending on the engine. Have you tried to see if there are any fault codes stored?

-KM

Reply to
kmatheson

It's the 3.0L V-6. No codes according to the Goodyear place.

Reply to
hoofdpijn

Yep..sitting at goodyear. I asked specifically about fuel pressure and they said it was "good", whatever that means.

This is my girlfriends car and I know the fuel filter probably hasn't been changed in 30k miles. Just seems so coincidental that it's been running fine and then after the brakes...

I wonder if jacking it up sloshed something loose in the fuel filter that is now causing issues....or maybe the fuel pump has just given it up. It's been pretty noisey for a while.

Reply to
hoofdpijn

Is there a fuel pressure tap on the rail somewhere or do I have to put the gauge inline. If I can get it home from the goodyear today I'll check the FP myself. What is the spec on it?

Reply to
hoofdpijn

Thanks Glen. I'll give that a shot. It's a 3.0L so I guess no FP test port. It'll pretty much start and idle eventually but giving it gas will kill it everytime. I died right in the middle of a busy intersection on the way to the goodyear. I'm not interested in going through that again.

I think I'm just going to write the thing off and buy her a new PT cruiser. How does a Chrysler Tech feel about those?

(I was a Ford tech in a previous life and definitely had opinions about what Fords I would never own)

Reply to
hoofdpijn

they said..."take it to the Chrysler dealer". :-| I'm not real excited about the idea of paying $100 to have it towed to a dealer. I think I'm just going to the dealer and buy a new car.

Anybody wanna buy a high mileage oil burning voyager? The AC works great! :-)

Reply to
hoofdpijn

Well, I have to say, I was ready to go in there and have a fight on my hands over the "check out" charge. Obviously to pay for a diagnosis, one should actually receive, you know, a DIAGNOSIS. It's one thing for them to tell me what's wrong and then have me decline to fix it. It's something else entirely for them to fiddle with it all morning and come back with "take it to the dealer". Anyway, I walked in, they handed me the key and that was it. $0. They didn't even do the other work I had authorized when I dropped it off (maintenance stuff) which was fine by me.

Anyway, I bought a new stripper Town & Country last night so now I just need to get this one running well enough to sell it. We went and picked it up from Goodyear late last night after we left the car dealer and it drove home fine. Idle was a little lopey but other than that it seemed okay. I didn't get any of the on throttle stalling that it was doing before. It really sounds like the fuel pump is getting hot and going south and then getting back up to some normal pressue when it's cold and hasn't been running all day. We had hundreds of Taurus/Sables with the exact symptom when I was doing to tech work.

Reply to
hoofdpijn

That's good to hear that they did not charge you. I once took my Dodge Spirit to the local Chrysler/Plymouth dealer to find an oil leak. After paying $59, they indicated that they could not determine where the leak was coming from.

I then took it to an independent shop. The service writer quickly determined that it was leaking from the front camshaft seal. Needless to say, I let them do the repair.

-KM

Reply to
kmatheson

Ya know, my old 94 Acclaim had the 3.0 V6 in it. Nothing but a pain in the ass.

It could be fuel starvation, but it could also be excessive fuel (eg flooding). And the thing that helps control this is...

I had a problem similar to yours at one time. What I did to get over that hump was remove, stripdown, and throughly clean the throttle body.

When I took mine off, it was full of BLACK GOO! I had to remove all the little sensors & stuff. On the side there was this conical brass thing with a spring under it. It could not even move because it was so thick with black goop! :(

A can of Throttle Body cleaner (NOT "carb" cleaner), an old tooth brush, some newspaper, and a lazy afternoon in the sun was all it took to clean this puppy up good as new.

After re-assembly, the engine ran MUCH better. ;)

Now this engine usually has other issues, but stick to the simple stuff first. At least take the throttle body off and have a look. Nothing to loose at this point.

hth

Reply to
NewMan

A bad MAP sensor can cause this also. Unplug it and see if it idles better.

Reply to
hartless

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