Car starts after sitting but drive it for a while and it might stall/ hard restart???

89SCGUY

Registered User
Picking up a Super coupe that has an issue I am not sure where to start with.
Seller claims you can start the car and drive it, yet after a while of driving the car " might " stall at a light and be difficult to restart. If you shut the car off after driving and then try to restart it is very hard starting...cranks for sometime 5-10 minutes? This is however not consistent and went an entire month once without happening, then persistent? I have no clue where to start, he thinks the cats are clogged???


I need your wisdom as to where I should start with this issue.

Thanks in advance guys
Adam
 
Definitely not cats. It could be a cam or crank sensor, or maybe a vacuum leak, or dirty MAF, all of those could cause it to stall and possibly not restart. Also the hard starting could just be a bad starter. Years ago I had a firebird that when the starter got hot, it would crank real slowly, too slow for the engine to actually start. As soon as it cooled down though, it would start right up.
 
Definitely not cats. It could be a cam or crank sensor, or maybe a vacuum leak, or dirty MAF, all of those could cause it to stall and possibly not restart. Also the hard starting could just be a bad starter. Years ago I had a firebird that when the starter got hot, it would crank real slowly, too slow for the engine to actually start. As soon as it cooled down though, it would start right up.


I am with you on the "not the cats" idea. Cam or crank sensor..hmmm
 
when you say that it is hard to start back up, can you explain a little better? does it slowly crank over? does it click? does it crank freely (like normal) but never start?..
 
when you say that it is hard to start back up, can you explain a little better? does it slowly crank over? does it click? does it crank freely (like normal) but never start?..

Sorry about that...cranks away nice and strong yet does not fire.
 
I had an 89 once that would stall after it had warmed up ( Approx 20min) I could drive it to and from work no problem in the fall. When it was getting colder out I could drive farther before it would act up. Once the spring came the car started acting as you described. I started changing parts out as I had bunch of good spares and it turn out that once I changed the DIS the problem went away. To make sure it was the part I reinstalled the old one again and the problem did not return so I cleaned off the grease and tried it again and sure enough the problem reappeared. I would check to see if there is any dielectric grease on the underside of the DIS.If not then try that as a low cost solution. If that does not work try cleaning the prongs on the DIS or try another one if you have a spare.

Just a thought.

John
 
I had an 89 once that would stall after it had warmed up ( Approx 20min) I could drive it to and from work no problem in the fall. When it was getting colder out I could drive farther before it would act up. Once the spring came the car started acting as you described. I started changing parts out as I had bunch of good spares and it turn out that once I changed the DIS the problem went away. To make sure it was the part I reinstalled the old one again and the problem did not return so I cleaned off the grease and tried it again and sure enough the problem reappeared. I would check to see if there is any dielectric grease on the underside of the DIS.If not then try that as a low cost solution. If that does not work try cleaning the prongs on the DIS or try another one if you have a spare.

Just a thought.

John


Interesting...I had a Blazer once that when the coil pack got hot the car would not start. Forgive my ignorance but what is the DIS?
 
It's a grey rectangle module located on the jack shaft bracket....

It is located just to the left of the blower snout and has DIS on it....
 

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I have a few SCs that kind of have the same problem.....

Sometimes, after driving them, you shut the engine off and when you come back to start the engine, it will crank and crank for quite some time.....

Try this, turn ignition to run but do not crank engine.....

Wait about 5 - 10 seconds, then start engine.....
 
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