Ok, well I got the stalling problem fixed, the crank position sensor. Now the car is jerking really hard while driving. It doesn't start up until after I've drove for a good 15-20 minutes. I've been letting the car warm up to 80 before driving it so it doesn't really seem to be engine temp related, unless of course it is the engine heating up some wire causing it to break connection.
There is no clunking sound either when this happens, or any sound for that matter it just jerks really hard. It gets progressively worse the longer I drive it. The jerking will start out only occasionally and eventually get to the point where any time I step on the gas it jerks until the point where it will just stall out on me after about 40 minutes.
It only seems to do it in forward gears. It doesn't even hesitate the least bit in park or neutral and doesn't jerk in reverse either, but if I punch it in reverse and come to a quick stop it will stall.
I can't reproduce the jerking no matter what I do, stomping on the gas, switching gears.
Another issue, quite possibly realted is that I need to replace my fuel filter again. This will be the third one. Before I bought the car it had been sitting in the woods for about 5 years. It was given to a friend of mine, he replace the fuel pump and filter, had the injectors cleaned, couldn't get it running and then I took possesion of it. Since then I've drained the fuel tank and have put two more fuel filters on it, but the thing is still clogging up filters. Any one have a good ideas of how to get this tank cleaned out good so I can stop wasting money on filters?
heres a list of what I've done so far.
Spark plugs
distributor
rotor button
crank position sensor
hours and hours of cleaning
cleaned batter terminals and every electrical connection I could find
checked duty cycle its 50.7
tomorrow plug wires come in
tomorrow I'm getting vacuum hose and replace all of that
I really need to get this thing going, it has the potential to be a great car, not to mention I'm driving a Kia Sephia right now
ok, so I'm going to reply to myself here seeing how nobody so far has any suggestions. Hopefully this thread doesn't end up getting as long as dewproof's.
I replaced all the vacuum lines today, well not all, just the ones that within the engine compartment and put on my new plug wires. I also cleaned the ICV, and of course everything piece of rubber or plastic I touch seems to break so I've got to replace a bunch of plactic pieces and a couple of hoses too.
this of course put a stop to me testig the Hall-effect sensor which was the next thing on my list, since I didn't want to warm the car up with it missing some crucial hoses. Tomorrow is another day.
I thought the hard jerking had something to do with the cup holders we saw downstream...
so, sorry your plastics are brittle. I'm watching and will suggest something if it comes anywhere close to my very narrow body of knowledge. I'm sure others are monitoring as well.
Yeah, I probably should get a another one of them tonight too. This will be the fourth since this car was pulled out of the woods. Which brings me back to finding a good way of cleaning out the tank. I drained it once already, but I guess that wasn't good enough.
Anyone know of a good safe solvent or something I could put in there and slosh around to clean it out better?
Holy crap I think I've been having an extended brain fart with this whole jerking car problem. Today I got everything back together with the new plug wires, and new vacuum hoses. took it for a test ride to get it up to temp so I could start testing some more things and of course it was still jerking. The fuel pump whinning the entire time. Parked it, put in the new fuel filter and started the car. The fuel pump was still whinning.
Then it clicked, the pump is still whinning with a new filter, so I know it's not the filter making it work harder and whin, duh, there's a strainer too. My new guess,(however uneducated it may be) is that the strainer is clogged. Makes since. The car runs fine after sitting awhile not because it's cooled off, but because all the crap stuck to the strainer has settled and the pump is getting the right amount of fuel again.
So this weekend I'm just going to go ahead and pull the tank out and clean it, and the strainer.
Try changing your gas cap....sitting like that for a long time, little critters might have made a nest in the fuel cap breather port...easy to check...when running for a while you should have pressure in the tank...due to heat expansion of the fuel..if you pull the cap and have vacuum..that might explain the problem...had it happen a couple of times on different cars when they sat for a long time...We have a little spider around here, that builds nests of a clay like material in small holes. I cannot tell you how many problems this has created with various things...weed whackers worked fine...4 months later wont fire or start...fuel port clogged with a nest...three gas caps over the years...my stored artificial christmas tree....all the branch pin holes were filed with these nests..none of the branches would snap into their holes..etc etc....just a maybe...particularily after it's been sitting in the woods so long. This might explain why it gets worse as you run..fuel starvation from tank vaccuum which builds gradually.
If you have a different fuel cap..just try swapping it and see if it gets better...or invest in a new one..less than $10.00. You can also try running without the fuel cap when it happens..but I don't reccomend this as the fuel vapors get very strong in the car.
Gas cap, yeah actually I just thought of that over the weekend after I cleaned the tank, which was supper dirty, you all should have seen all the crap that came out of it. As far as the gas cap I think you might be right. there is a big whooshing sound that happens when I take it off, plus yesterday I actually heard fuel bubbling back up into the tank after turning the car off, so the thing is not breathing right.
It's has been running a lot better since cleaning the tank though, and I've found that once it starts jerking like it does if I just shut the car off and start it right back up its good again for awhile longer.
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