A continuing saga - "As Luck Would Have It."
Sometimes it makes me wonder!
Yesterday I wanted to attend a cruise event in Thousand Oaks, but I had problems before I even got out of the South Bay.
As I was cruising down Vista Del Mar, almost to Playa Del Ray, I noticed my voltmeter reading around 10 volts. I stopped by a friend's in the area and we checked it with another voltmeter just to be sure. It was only putting out 10 volts.
I turned around and headed back home, hoping that I'd make it. As I got closer to home, I saw the volts slowly dropping off ... 10, 9, 8 ... It finally gave up and died at 8 volts and wouldn't restart. I was lucky I made it as far as I did though, because a stock setup would have died at 10 volts or so. My computer, coils and injectors are all wired directly from the battery, therefore I had enough juice to run the engine for awhile, but the electrical instruments wouldn't even read. Luckily I do have mechanical gauges for oil pressure and temperature, and coolant temperature, so I was able to monitor those critical readings.
I flat-bedded it home yesterday, removed and replaced the alternator, charged the battery for two full hours, and everything appeared to be A-OK. Wrong!
This morning I got on the 405 headed north, and lo and behold, what does my voltmeter read but 10 volts - again! I kept my eye on it and it didn't appear to be dropping any, so I continued out to the SF Valley. The 405 was more of a mess than usual too for some reason. I think the 10 had its own problems, and it was causing the backup on the 405, in both drections.
Anyhow, I noticed it continued to slowly drop until by the time I was on SR23 near the park where I was originally headed for a Corvette show, the voltmeter reading was so low that I just continued to Tierra Rejada and then into Simi.
However, the station I thought was a full service station was only an AM/PM Mini-Mart so I couldn't just charge the battery and drive it back home; instead I had to call AAA again and flatbed it back. There's a K-Mart there too, but I didn't have the money to buy a battery either. I didn't see a garage there at the K-Mart so maybe they didn't even have batteries.
Now, I get home and put it on the charger to recharge the battery fully before attempting to start i again. After 45 minutes or so, I had enough charge in it that I thought it would start and I could move it in the garage and get back to it later.
When I tried to start it though, I noticed a rather loud "clicking" noise coming from somewhere around the plenum, but couldn't pinpoint it due to the noise from my electric fuel pump. I disconnected the fuel pump from the circuit by removing the fuse, then tried the key again, this time with a stethoscope to pinpoint the noise; # 8 injector was merrily cycling away, pumping tons of fuel into the cylinder.
I unplugged the offending injector and tried it again. Still clicking on #4. I unplugged that one and tried again. Still clicking! So I unplugged them all and tried it that way.
I turned the key with them all unplugged and there was no clicking, so I started plugging them in one-at-a-time. Not only were #4 and #8 cycling, but #3 was as well!!
Now, due to the fact that as I was checking things the first few times, a lot of fuel had accumulated under the plenum and around the manifold base. Even though I checked the oil for any excessive gasoline odor, I decided to pull the plugs just to be on the safe side. It's a good thing I did!
The fuel simply POURED from those three offended cylinders. I mean it poured! I had so much fuel around the front of the car, it was a good thing no one was around smoking.
Now, on top of my charging problem, I have to figure out why the injectors were cycling like that.
Sometimes it does make me wonder!
:eyerole
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