trying to revive an old 1.6

[Smoker]

I bought a caddy a few months ago, and I'm finally getting around to working on it.  Typical story from the PO.  It had been sitting for a while, he got it as payment for work, he never heard it run, etc... last inspection was '01.  But it was cheap, and has very little rust, so here we go...

It had a gasser timing belt on it that was pretty loose, so between that and the fact that it felt like it had zero compression when turning the motor over by hand, I figured that the previous owner/mechanic was a complete moron and the motor was probably trashed.

Step 1: compression test.  325, 320, 320, 325.  Shocking.

Step 2: put the proper belt on it.  At this point, I found out that the i/m shaft pulley was looser than loose, hanging on by a thread, literally it was just flopping around after I took the old belt off.  Lucky.  Also, the cam timing was just slightly off, I'm not sure if that hurt my compression readings or not, but I can't imagine it helped...

Step 3: check fuel situation.  I tried to prime it via the vac pump on the return line method.  It took a while, but I got there.  Lots of air in it, but plenty of off road diesel from who knows when (3/4 tank in it!!) coming through as well.  Lol.  I replaced all rubber lines in the engine bay and primed it again, and got the same results.  I'd say I was probably pulling equal amounts of air and fuel, which seems weird, but I'm still somewhat of a diesel noob.  I wasn't sure how long I should keep going, and my kids were all getting tired of running the pump. 

Step 4: fresh glow plugs.  I replaced all four.  I also realized I had no power getting to them, so for the time being, I used some heavy gauge wire from the buss bar that I just held right on the positive terminal for 30 seconds before I tried to start it.

No start, no sputter, no nothing.  I cracked a few injector lines and cranked it.  No fuel.  The shutoff solenoid is getting power, and I can feel it clicking on and off with the key.  What's my next step?

[burn_your_money]

Sounds like you still have air in the pump. It's possible that the pump is gummed up, you can try starting it while pulling a vacuum through it to help it along. It's easier if you can put pressurized fuel to the feed though.

[Smoker]

Sounds like you still have air in the pump. It's possible that the pump is gummed up, you can try starting it while pulling a vacuum through it to help it along. It's easier if you can put pressurized fuel to the feed though.

Good call.  I have a 6psi or whatever univeral pump lying around here somewhere.  I'll try that tomorrow.

[air-cooled or diesel]

compression #s are low, even for hf comp tester. and a gummed up ip most likely, if you have fuel at by vac pumping it, and crank over you should shortly get fuel at injectors, other than that ip gummed?

[ORCoaster]

I have to say that given the engine sat for so long you are in for opening that IP up and getting the little vanes free.  It just isn't going to put out fuel.  One thing you can check is crack the nuts on the rear of the pump while cranking.  If you have fuel there then just a bit more cranking is going to fill the lines to the injectors.  Each pump only squirts out what a millimeter or so of fuel?  So filling those lines to the injector does take a bit.  You gotta remember each rotation of the IP only puts fuel in the line one quarter of the time. 

[Smoker]

compression #s are low, even for hf comp tester.

Really?  I thought those numbers were pretty decent, considering the circumstances...  should certainly be enough to run, yes?

[air-cooled or diesel]

use glow plugs and starting fluid ;not the best advice, but i figure even if you have fuel there, 300&change is a tough cold start. 400 is closer to normal

[EcoTX]

I helped a guy locally with his 1.6 pickup a while back with the same issue...no start, no fuel to injectors.

Sounds like you may have some electrical gremlins since your glow plugs aren't getting juice, and so did he...

Basically what was happening to him was while turning the key to run and cranking, he was losing his voltage to the stop solenoid somehow.

His would click and everything with the key, but when he turned it to run/crank it would go to 0 volts on the multimeter and fuel was never making it to the injectors.

We ran a wire directly from the battery 12v to the solenoid and then tried it again and it fired right up.

Something easy to try that might be it, good luck.

[burn_your_money]

I've driven on 350 psi. Once you get some fuel in there and long glowplug cycle times and warm ambient temps it should run and drive fine until the cold parts of the year. Unless there's lots of blowby... You may need to really advance the timing.

Excellent advice on losing 12v to the stop solenoid while cranking.

If you can pull/push a can of seafoam or diesel purge or even ATF into the pump you might be able to get it ungunked if it's minor. You're probably going to be dealing with leaky seals anyways pretty soon so a good clean out should be on the list of to dos.

[air-cooled or diesel]

i found a good way to rotate ip; with a 3/8 air-ratchet , timing belt off of course, run atf or sea foam or lubromoloy or mix, inj lines off, pump will spin at a good speed and can get flush thru it, then let flush sit for a while. as soon as you finish using the air-ratchet loosen the pump nut, the ratchet will constantly tighten nut, so after every use, (not every 5or10minutes)loosen and resnug, and before reassembling timing belt retorque pump nut(40or45ftlbs). NOT an impact; but a 3/8 ratchet.
fuel solenoid has to work and you ll get good spurts out of ip squirters

[Smoker]

That seems like a good idea...

[Smoker]

I put some pressure to the fuel and just got it barely dribbling out with injector lines cracked.

Time to try flushing the pump. Anything wrong with using straight atf? I'm a cheap bastard...

[air-cooled or diesel]

take off inj lines and go from there, flush it out, atf is ok, dont know the best brand; i used syn atf. lubromoloy mix w/atf sounds better; uum if you do take timing belt off, just make sure of one thing, as with any timing work, get it to tdc first.

[Smoker]

Of course. Thanks.

[burn_your_money]

Fuel dribbling out sounds normal to me. Now that's it's dribbling run those glowplugs and see if she'll fire. Look for white smoke coming out the exhaust to indicate that fuel is making it into the cylinders.