My engine up and died going uphill in stop and go traffic today. (not fun) I'm wondering what the problem may be and what to look for. Symptoms: Car electronics work alright; starter cranks and such but there is no fire. Take out spark plug; it's clean, gapped well, etc. Test it for spark against the head: nothing. Check against other metal parts: nothing. Take off the distributor cap: doesn't look too bad. Check the wire coming from the coil to distributor cap: no spark there when cranking. At this point we figured it was possibly a bad coil. We bought a new coil and voltage regulator (because it's cheap, and hey, we might have to replace that since the problem seems to be in that area) The new coil didn't change things; still no spark anywhere. So then we went about searching for the voltage regulator. And searched we did. Quite a while. The Haynes manual makes no mention of its location; the replacement (external) said it was bolted to the firewall. It's not on the firewall. I thought only 1987s and later had voltage regulators that are internal (according to the Haynes book). How could this 1986 car have one interally?
But, more to the point: even if it isn't the regulator's fault, what else could it be? Timing belt? If so, is there a procedure for it that does not involve tearing out the majority of the engine? (that does not sound like fun, especially parked in a random person's parking lot as it is)
Anything simpler that I am overlooking? I will investigate any ideas you have and hopefully, let you know tomorrow.
Thank you for your time and possible help, MED