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As stated this car is a 1987 Buick Park Avenue, front wheel drive with a 3.8L engine. It’s distributorless and is fuel injected. My problem is that if I start it by just turning the key, it will start and run for about 2 mins and then die, and will turn-over but not start unless I wait 15 to 20 minutes or disconnect the negative battery cable and then reconnect it (no waiting). If I start it by just turning the key and then rev it up 3 or 4 times everything seems normal, I can shut it off and restart with no problems. It doesn’t throw any codes and although I haven’t checked the fuel pressure with a gauge, it does have pressure at the fuel rail and I can hear the fuel pump kick on. I’m at a loss with this, it’s just too expensive to start replacing electronic modules without at least an idea of which one it might be. Any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you for looking at this post.
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a common cause of this issue is the crank sensor, the vehicle will drive great for a while, then when it warms up it will just quit, as the crank sensor goes out the vehicle does not know which cylinder too fire its fuel injectors and spark plugs at what time… they commonly go out at high mielages, and i don’t know what codes they would set besides maybe some missfire codes.
other things that can cause your engine too stall out is the MAF sensor, it can cause the engine too not understand how much air is going into your engine… causing commonly a lean condition, causing your engine too stall beacuse there is not enough fuel in the fuel too air mixture, however you may see a code and it would commonly not just up and stall and not start like you are experiencing…
personally it sounds like a crank sensor too me, too replace it you will have to remove the Harmonic balancer and you will need a special pulley puller too get it off and probably a impact gun too get that nut off.
hope this helps
Thanks, I’ll check it out, but I’ve never had a crank sensor that didn’t throw a code, and this throws no codes, but I will check it.
#1 with the crank sensor. when the car stalls. see if the
car has spark.if not crank sensor. also if you have a scanner
to read live data.when you crank the engine.You need to see about
300 rpm. unless the car has a tach. see if the tach moves.[quote=”Durango” post=58204]No I don’t have a scanner that reads live data, but sounds like a good excuse to buy. Thank you.[/quote]
You could just buy a spark tester to test spark.
But you are right with that being a good excuse
to get a scanner. 😉 keep us posted.I will, Thanks. is there any special set up to replacing the crank sensor, I replaced the harmonic balancer a couple of years ago, so that part is no problem.
I had one of those cars. I loved the car but it was a money pit. I agree with the others about the crank sensor. All of the older and even newer 3.8s are notorious for crank sensor failures as well as ignition modules and computers. (ECM)
The Computers in those years were not sophisticated enough to flag a crank sensor fault unless the car ran poorly for a length of time before the engine quit running. That hardly ever happens.
I would remove the ECM from under the dashboard (RF above the foot well). With the engine running grab onto it from opposite corners and lightly twist it back and forth or tap on it with your knuckles. If the engine falters or turns off I would suspect a broken solder joint on the circuit board inside. The PCM would require replacement.
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