Stopped and Won't Start - '74 2.0 Stock DJet, But all was well and going so great Options

[Larouex]

I have put a 100 miles on my rebuild for my 2.0, Stock DJet and everything was running great. Now the engine has died and it will not start.

Here is what happened...

I was coming around the corner and taking it on my Sunday drive to around 80 MPH and then the engine started to drop acceleration, engine would engage, then buck and then it just ran weakly for a another 100 yards and seemed to not respond to any throttle. Once I pulled over and tried to start it, it was dead. So I walked back to the house (and came back to tow it) it would not start, so I brought it home.

Here is what I tested this afternoon to troubleshoot the car...

• I verified the fuel pump. Pulled the relay, shorted it and my PSI is 29 and all seems well on my fuel loop.
• Tested the plugs for spark, put in the tester and tried all 4 wires, all had strong spark.
• Put in starter thrust spray and the engine does start and then dies.
• I pulled thew 1 & 3 injectors and tested them for spray. They both sprayed and clicked and sprayed as I used the throttle.

The other thing I was doing this last week, I was repairing the gauges, new lights, etc. I thought maybe I had the Tach wires messed up as that can cause the engine to crap, but I verified this with 2 tachs and I think it is unrelated as the engine will start with starter spray,

I seem to be dealing with a fuel problem to the injectors, but things seem to check out.

I am now stuck and looking for suggestions from the experts.

Larouex

[davesprinkle]

I have put a 100 miles on my rebuild for my 2.0, Stock DJet and everything was running great. Now the engine has died and it will not start.

Here is what happened...

I was coming around the corner and taking it on my Sunday drive to around 80 MPH and then the engine started to drop acceleration, engine would engage, then buck and then it just ran weakly for a another 100 yards and seemed to not respond to any throttle. Once I pulled over and tried to start it, it was dead. So I walked back to the house (and came back to tow it) it would not start, so I brought it home.

Here is what I tested this afternoon to troubleshoot the car...

• I verified the fuel pump. Pulled the relay, shorted it and my PSI is 29 and all seems well on my fuel loop.
• Tested the plugs for spark, put in the tester and tried all 4 wires, all had strong spark.
• Put in starter thrust spray and the engine does start and then dies.
• I pulled thew 1 & 3 injectors and tested them for spray. They both sprayed and clicked and sprayed as I used the throttle.

The other thing I was doing this last week, I was repairing the gauges, new lights, etc. I thought maybe I had the Tach wires messed up as that can cause the engine to crap, but I verified this with 2 tachs and I think it is unrelated as the engine will start with starter spray,

I seem to be dealing with a fuel problem to the injectors, but things seem to check out.

I am now stuck and looking for suggestions from the experts.

Larouex

Verify that your injector points are working.

[Larouex]

Well I swapped in another dizzy and trigger points are all working, still dead. Plugs are dry. It makes me think I am still chasing a fuel problem of some kind and the failure was so quick and it stumping me.

Question. I am going to pull the injectors, what should I check and test into baby jars as far as how much fuel should be coming out, etc.?

I have at least 2 of every part for a DJet, so I will start testing, but this is frustrating and worse, I cannot trust this kind of failure if I am far from home, hell it might push me to carbs <shudder/>

[ConeDodger]

Make sure your CHT is connected. In fact chase down all the EFI connections. Some of them will shut down the engine if they are pulled.

Make sure if your tin is late model and you have mounted the coil to the tin that the coil hasn't rotated and shorted out against the tin.

[Larouex]

Well, all the symptoms did not lead to me t-shoot to the root cause. What ended up getting it running was swapping in a MPS unit. Then it started right up, it was the last thing I tried as it was a rebuilt unit and I just did the pbanders verification with a vacuum pull and testing of resistance values when I put the engine in just a 100 miles ago, dang!

I will do a verification on the failed MPS in the next few days and I post what I learned. Sadly, this is my last good MPS for a 2.0 and after the last reman POC I ordered, I need to find a backup.

Larouex

[john grier]

Well I am not an expert, but
what about something simple
like the condenser
maybe the wires broke
John

[john grier]

I add this because the same thing happened to my 74
three years ago.
like you said went around a curve and the car died.
After checking all the major stuff, witch was fine,
came down to checking the condenser,
The wires had broken off. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)
Simple lesson I learned
Check the easy stuff first,
not the hard.

[Larouex]

I add this because the same thing happened to my 74
three years ago.
like you said went around a curve and the car died.
After checking all the major stuff, witch was fine,
came down to checking the condenser,
The wires had broken off. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)
Simple lesson I learned
Check the easy stuff first,
not the hard.

Sure, I am pretty disciplined so I went through things carefully and one at a time, try it test and then move on <g/> I appreciate your response. It really was a MPS failure and I reproduced it swapping the part in and testing it.

Larouex

[Bleyseng]

So the mps shorted out or had a vacuum failure?