I have a 1992 Loyale station wagon and it died on me today, just acted like it ran out of gas, when I tired to start it it tried to turn over but just wouldn't start and it backfired....ran great up until now, any suggestions?? Thank you

Well, I'm no expert, so let's wait till some of the gurus reply... What I can say is that my 92 loyale did a very similar thing a few months back. My problem was a broken passenger side timing belt. If you have any more details, they would probably be helpful.

 

Mine went like this: Driving down the highway, I noticed a loss of power. When I got to an exit and came to a complete stop, it died. It would turn over, and sounded like it wanted to start, but couldn't. Someone here suggested I check the t-belt, and it was right on. It's a relatively simple repair. I'm no mechanic, but I replaced it with the car parked on an empty side street in a couple of hours.

 

Hope this helps.

probably the drivers side timing belt broke.

 

take the distributor cap off, and try to start it... if your distributor rotor isnt

turning then you know the belt broke..

 

drivers side belt cost me 22.00, passenger side was 18.00

 

most backyard mechanics can do the work to replace the belt.

last time i did one it took 45 minutes total.

 

there are instructions on this board, do a search for "timing belt"

 

three key points:

*distributor should be on cylinder #1 at Top Dead Center on compression stroke

*flywheel has ignition timing marks AND also three hash marks, choose center hash mark

*one cam cog should have the dot up, and one should have the dot down.

your choice

 

remove the clutch fan, 4 10mm nuts

drain cooling system, drain on bottom passenger side

remove grill, radiator

remove crank pulley (i think its a 17mm or 19mm) put a punch or screw driver

in one of the holes in the flywheel to prevent it turning.

lousy plastic timing belt covers are the worst part of the job, i removed em completely and tossed em in the trash.

dont over tension the belts, but dont leave them loose at all

 

dont be shy with questions...

theres probably a few photos of the front of your engine without belt covers

in the gallery section

Thank you so much guys, the initial thought was the timing belt (after of course I checked the gas gauge...lol).....hopefully this is what it is and will be an easy fix....what a great forum board!

Hello! I'm very sorry to hear about your recent car troubles. From what I can gather, everyone thinks that it is the timing belt and since the car is a Loyale, it means EA82(I would assume SPFI). It is a possibility, but instead of checking the driver's side timing belt, you should probably check the passenger side belt. In your description, you said that it tries to turn over, but won't start and then just backfires. That would mean that the distributor is turning, considering it is driven by the driver's side camshaft, which in turn is driven by the driver's side timing belt. If you check, and one belt is broken, you might as well go ahead and replace them both at the same time. It is better to be safe than sorry.

Now another possibility could be a belt tensioner went, which allowed the timing belt to jump a couple teeth and you would then wind up in the current predicament as well. Timing would be off, causing the engine not to start. And then, there is also the distributor itself. If it went bad, you most likely get no spark whatsoever. And this is because they have an "optical pick-up" inside the distributor. Also, there is an ignition condensor(I believe that is what it is called) strapped around outside of the ignition coil. If this goes, again, no spark. So there are a few things that you can check.

 

BTW, don't forget to check the ECU.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Patrick

It's probably more likely that the screw holding the distributor rotor came loose and the rotor is now spinning freely on the disty shaft, but it could very well be a timing belt too.

 

Those two things are probably the most common causes is "sudden death" on the EA82s.