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92 EJ22 wagon runs fine then when warm dies no restart


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92 EJ22 wagon runs fine then without warning stalls after running for a while.

 

Finally got the CE light working to retrieve codes 21(coolant temp sensor) and 13(cam position sensor no signal).

 

Are there 2 coolant temp sensors? One for the gauge and one for the computer or just one that satisfies both functions?

 

My hypothesis is that when warm, and after enough time that the CE lite comes on, the ECU shuts her down due to an out of range coolant temp input. Any comments or suggestions?

 

I will next swap in another cam position sensor, but she'll start right up when cool so my bet is that sensor is either intermittent or not required for the engine to run. Stupid question, but will an EJ22 run without a cam position input to the ECU? Just wondering.

 

After warmed up and driving a while she dies and won't re-start, until re-setting the CE lite (overnite battery disconnected)

 

 

 

 

Many things on this engine and electrical connections/components have been verified good, but a glitch or two remain. The dash temp gauge reads pegged right after startup (this is new, worked before) so will check the connection and sensor(s)? next.

 

All 4 (that I'm aware of) engine bay grounds have been cleaned, lubed and are rock solid. Obviously have timing, compression, fuel and spark but out of nowhere, without warning she shuts down and won't fire back up.

 

Verified the fuel pump relay is good, and the brown ignition relay too. No fuses are blowing, fusible link and slow blows all good, no shorts or opens detected.

 

Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any insight, experience, knowledge and suggestions to this puzzling problem.

 

Best Regards

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Without the cam sensor the ECU won't know if you are on an even or odd crank rotation so won't know when to fire the injectors or the coils.

 

The coolant sensor will leave you running rich because the ECU won't know you are warmed up past startup enrichment.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great tech support thanks for the info.

 

I'm stumped again. Got her running like a top, with a swapped out coolant temp sensor (2-wire for the ECU) and cam position sensor. Performed road warrior mega errand chores all week long with no problems.

 

On our way down the canyon from work she just quit running, out of seemingly nowhere.

after coasting the last few miles to the bottom of the canyon she fired back up again and nearly got us home but ended up being towed.

 

I cleared the 13 and 21 codes once home. Started her up just fine the next morning to run errands, stalled her (D'oh!!!) at a stop sign and it simply would not re-start.

 

Now I'm getting a code 22, knock sensor, no 13 or 21 codes....yet.....

Still just wont fire up. Quite the mystery.

 

What would you do? It's clear she doesn't like being stalled, but why after doing that won't it start back up?

Maybe a fuel pump impact switch is cutting power?

 

Thanks for any ideas.

 

Regards

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The hard part is figuring out what is lacking during the problem.

 

You need spark, fuel, and air that get compressed and then burned.

 

Compression doesn't come and go across the entire engine like that so we can ignore that for now.

 

You should have a mechanical throttle not an electronic throttle so we can ignore air for now.

 

That leaves fuel and spark. These are both a little harder to figure out because you don't just need them, but you need them also to happen at just the right time.

 

In the previous problem it is likely that you were capable of spark, but with an intermittent cam sensor you didn't know when to spark and so it just skipped it.

 

There are a bunch of electrical things that could be stopping either or both of fuel and spark. Sounds like this happens when something is hot and after it cools it works again.

 

Best plan would be if you can drive it around the block dozens of times so you don't get far from home while waiting for it to exhibit the problem. But not everyone lives in a place where the roads would allow for this.

 

If it were mine I would drive it to failure, and then pull out my tools and remove a spark plug. If you do this after a bunch of tries to start it and the plug is wet with gas you have fuel and likely lack spark. With it out you can check if you and an assistant can see the spark happen. You should be able to find a youtube video about verifying spark. If you lack both fuel and spark you likely have a sensor problem where the ECU has lost sync with the mechanical bits and doesn't know when to do fuel or spark.

 

From there we can start to check more specific things.

 

One good thing to check on our older cars is electrical grounds. By check I mean unscrew it, sand or wire bush all the wire rings and the attach point clean, and reassemble. If they are rusty they can make a good sensor fail to deliver data and stop the ECU from running the engine.

Edited by doublechaz
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