Crank Sensor....Right?

Tim Groth

SCCoA Member
Well it seems as though it is a continuing story with my car, I replace one thing and then some other unseen problem appears. I guess that's besides the point though...so here's where I'm at.

I was driving home late Sunday after freshly filling my bird with 93 unleaded and after a small bit of speeding my car suddenly cuts off power to the engine...everything eles such as lights etc. still work. So I'm dumbfounded. Coast to a stop and pop the hood. All connections seem to be fine and I can't see anything out of the ordinary...however its 11pm. So I jump in the car and give her a go. She turns over repeatedly but won't start. So I again make sure everything is connected as it should be. Hop in and after some moaning and heavy missing (along with a few burps...mild backfiring I guess is a better description.) she starts up and runs fine till I get home. I drove like a grandma the entire time, which I'm sure helped out.

Once at home I let it idel for say 10 minutes, and there are no signs of anything wrong so I thought perhaps a ground or something got shook when I hit a bump...who knows?

Next day get in the car to head to school and well she starts up fine and I start to motor along, when I start to smell dog poo...so I stop to clean it off and the car is ideling like normal and then she begins to miss and then dies. Go to restart it and nothing. After walking home I come on here and starting reading and well after noticing the shift up light is on when turning the key I say AHH HA! Run to Advance have them order a crank sensor to cure all the problems right!

Replaced the sensor, fire up the car and she runs, I'm thinking WHOA! It's fixed. Well she idels for about 2 minutes and then the same **** happens. So now I'm pissed, after all this still nothing to ride in. So I pull the battery cables thinkin perhaps the computer has to relearn itself. So do that, hook it back up and she runs fine. Take it for a spin and she seems great! Get back to my house to show the family what the 10% pulley on the SC will do (desided to do this too while I had the hood up) and after a nice strip is left she starts to miss and then die...so it was entertaining for them.

So I say the hell with it and go out for a night on the town cus I'm just getting depressed working on my SC all the time!

Next day I have to get to work, and well she's all I got...30 mile trip and I'm praying she will make me proud. I get about 27 miles to work and she dies on me again! I'm about to cry, and after some fooling around she runs again (just like the first time) so I continue on and say about .2 miles later dies and won't even come on with any hope.

So just my luck, it got towed for being broke down on the edge of the interstate, so after a 165 towin bill I pick it up. Jump in it (while it's in the tow lot) and she runs for about 10 ft and then again dies. Shift up light is back on.... I'm lost, that's why I'm here.

Also I found that my harmonic balancer bolt is broken off but the balancer isn't wobbling or anything (odd I know). So even though it is going to cause a problem in the future right now it is good enough to fix what ever is wrong....

Is there any sort of Crank Sensor help I could have? Did I put on a bad part or did I put it on worng for that matter?

Please give me some hints and tips.

TIA

-Tim
 
If your Balancer bolt is broken, when the car is under stress (engine) there is going to be play in it. Since you already changed the crank sensor once, you know that there is about an 1/8 for the metal pieces on the back side of the balancer to pass through. You NEED to replace your balancer NOW. You will simply keep going through crank sensors until your balance falls off (which you're very lucky is hasn't happened yet). And then you'll be looking at an even more difficult job. Your bird is grounded until you can get the balancer fixed.
 
EXACT same thing here!

I hyas the exact same problems you mention above, for about a month or so the car was either being fixed or simply docked..

Firsrt thing I changed was the Harmonics Balancer then the DIS (it turned out it was burnt).

After that came the CAM sensor which also was fried and screwed up the tach after 15 minutes of running fine and sometimes just didn´t allowed you to start the car.

On some ocations unplugging the MAF letted me start the car for a while In thet case I only cleaned the MAF and that stopped.

About a month or so just to play it safe I changed the EEC all together after it´s been running smoother than ever|.

Hope that helps.
 
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