Stranded, cobra died

[sunburned]

Thanks guys. I just tried pulling the Crank sensor, but I have to pull the belt and loosen the AC compressor to get the damn sensor out. Who designs this shit?? I guess I'll have to come back down to my house tomorrow and work on it some more, I just don't know what else to do.

Oh, I called the towing company. Both the lady that answered the phone and some dude I talked to after claim there is no way the flat spot on the tire came from them towing it. Apparently all the tread on that part of the tire just magically disappeared. Tire was fine when the car cut off, got it towed, dropped in the driveway, and hasn't moved since. Somewhere along the line, one spot on one rear tire got completely worn down past the wear bars. Guess I must have done some crazy trick where I went 150mph and locked up just one rear wheel... Dude was a total douche, trying to figure out how to resolve this and get my tire paid for.

 

[phillySVT]

That sucks about the tire.

 

[01SaleenS281]

Thanks guys. I just tried pulling the Crank sensor, but I have to pull the belt and loosen the AC compressor to get the damn sensor out. Who designs this shit?? I guess I'll have to come back down to my house tomorrow and work on it some more, I just don't know what else to do.

Oh, I called the towing company. Both the lady that answered the phone and some dude I talked to after claim there is no way the flat spot on the tire came from them towing it. Apparently all the tread on that part of the tire just magically disappeared. Tire was fine when the car cut off, got it towed, dropped in the driveway, and hasn't moved since. Somewhere along the line, one spot on one rear tire got completely worn down past the wear bars. Guess I must have done some crazy trick where I went 150mph and locked up just one rear wheel... Dude was a total douche, trying to figure out how to resolve this and get my tire paid for.

They are most likely at fault as this has happened to me in the past. The car was towed and it lost pressure due to a faulty valve stem (new tires mounted a few days prior) and the driver just kept going to my mechanic’s house. The same could have happened if a bump was hit at high speed with the weight on the rear of the car. The tow company we used denied it as well and the mechanic reimbursed me since he recommended the towing company. Best of luck finding the source of your troubles man!!!

 

[mitrls10]

Something like this sucks trying to diagnose without looking at it... I wish you could get your hands on a genesis scan tool and I'll tell ya what all the values supposed to read.

 

[lRageATMl]

any news yet dale?

 

[sunburned]

Nah, I really didn't feel like dealing with it this weekend. I'll look at it this week, try to replace a few sensors or something and see what happens.

 

[gcassidy]

Hope its something simple once you find it.

 

[FISHTAIL]

Ok, just to update everyone, thanks to Charles (a soaking wet Charles) Dale's car is now in my garage. I swapped out the crank position sensor tonight, and after some fussing due to a low batt, we were able to get it to start, once. It sounded like complete crap when it did run, so the crank sensor wasn't the problem. Next up is the cam sensor, I'll change that out tomorrow night with the one from my car to see if that takes care of it. My next best guess from there is a coil pack failure, but that's something I don't have laying around to plug in and try.

So if the Cam Position sensor doesn't do it, I'll pull the drivers side plugs, have a look, and if anyone nearby with a 96-98 cobra wants to drop in and lend me a coil pack for 20 minutes or so that would be a big help. At this point I'm still thinking spark related due to the hard knock the engine makes when it does actually run. It almost sounds like something let go in the engine it's so damned loud, but seeing as it only does it when it's running, and not while cranking, I'm sure the rotating assembly is fine.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to find a donor for a couple of coil packs to play with on friday if the cam sensor isn't the problem tomorrow night. I'd check the spark from both packs, but that would require removing a strut tower brace and a lot of piping that I don't feel like removing unless I need to.

 

[sunburned]

Yeah, a really big thanks to Charles and Mike for helping me transport the car from my parents house to Mike's garage. You have no idea how hard it is to roll a car up onto a trailer, backwards, in pouring down rain. Took us at least 6 tries. Of course, after we got the car off the trailer at Mike's, it stopped raining. Figures.

But yeah, about the car, read the post above.

 

[SPRAYED DAILY]

damn Dale, it sucks that your car is still down. Good Luck

 

[gcassidy]

Mike, where do you live again? PM me if you want.

 

[lRageATMl]

pulling the spark plugs was the first thing you should have done even if it is a major pain in the ass oke:

 

[sunburned]

What will the plugs show us? Won't they just be all covered in gas or whatever from trying to start the car a million times?

Here is a question: Say one of the coilpacks is bad. We are trying to start the car a bunch and it's turned over and ran a few seconds a handfull of times. If 4 cylinders aren't firing but the fuel is fine, wouldn't those cylinders just fill up with gas? Could this cause the horrible knocking sound we are hearing because the motor is trying to compress the gas?

 

[FISHTAIL]

Mike, where do you live again? PM me if you want.

Greg, I'm down in the direction of MIR in La Plata. Probably about an hour and a half to two hours from you depending on where you are exactly. I'm about 2 minutes from Rt 301. You are of course welcome to make the trip if you want, anytime I might add, but if you are thinking about it at least hold off until I have eliminated other possibilities so you don't drive down for nothing.

pulling the spark plugs was the first thing you should have done even if it is a major pain in the ass oke:

Perhaps, except that in this case I think we can say with reasonable certainty that spark is the problem. At this point pulling the plugs wont tell me much because they will all just be covered with gas.

 

[FISHTAIL]

What will the plugs show us? Won't they just be all covered in gas or whatever from trying to start the car a million times?

Here is a question: Say one of the coilpacks is bad. We are trying to start the car a bunch and it's turned over and ran a few seconds a handfull of times. If 4 cylinders aren't firing but the fuel is fine, wouldn't those cylinders just fill up with gas? Could this cause the horrible knocking sound we are hearing because the motor is trying to compress the gas?

Well the valves are still opening so you aren't going to completely flood it, but yes there is probably some gas in there. If the next couple of quick things I want to look at don't take care of the issue, I will remove all the plugs so the cylinders can dry out and to make sure the car turns over cleanly.

 

[PSUCOBRA96]

I am outta town this weekend fo rthe 4th but if worse comes to worse and you need to swap and test some parts I am willing to help out next week

 

[lRageATMl]

Greg, I'm down in the direction of MIR in La Plata. Probably about an hour and a half to two hours from you depending on where you are exactly. I'm about 2 minutes from Rt 301. You are of course welcome to make the trip if you want, anytime I might add, but if you are thinking about it at least hold off until I have eliminated other possibilities so you don't drive down for nothing.




Perhaps, except that in this case I think we can say with reasonable certainty that spark is the problem. At this point pulling the plugs wont tell me much because they will all just be covered with gas.

i'm sure you know that spark plugs can tell you a million things about how the car is running. I highly doubt they will be covered in gas, but even if one or 2 are, it will tell you which cylinder the issue lies. Hell the plugs themselves may be jacked up for some reason... picking up another set (since they are cheap) may be a good idea too.

the car isn't throwing any codes?

 

[sunburned]

Only code I pulled off of it was for a fuel pump relay. Since none of the stock wiring is connected to the pumps anymore, I just shrugged it off. The pumps are running fine when we try to start it and the FP gauge is reading normal.

 

[FISHTAIL]

i'm sure you know that spark plugs can tell you a million things about how the car is running. I highly doubt they will be covered in gas, but even if one or 2 are, it will tell you which cylinder the issue lies. Hell the plugs themselves may be jacked up for some reason... picking up another set (since they are cheap) may be a good idea too.

the car isn't throwing any codes?

Haven't checked for codes yet...I'll be doing all of that tonight. And your right about the plugs, except in this case we have a no start condition where we have already checked for intake blockage (there isn't one) and after a lot of cranking, I can smell fuel, so I'm fairly certain that fuel isn't the problem. So if the plugs aren't firing (and your right, pulling them would at least tell me that) then they'll be covered in fuel.

It's also possible that one or two of them is hosed, but I'd be really surprised if all 8 plugs suddenly went south. So if it were only a plug or to I'd expect the car to run, albeit very poorly.

In any case, I don't disagree with your assessment that removing and inspecting the plugs is important, I'm only pointing out that in this particular case it wasn't my top priority given the circumstances. I have one more quick thing I want to look at, after which I will be removing plugs. I need to get the car fixed as quickly as possible too, because my father in law is dropping his escort off at my house tonight for me to replace the clutch over the weekend. Plus I'd really like to replace my diff bushings so I can hit the track...

 

[mitrls10]

Just test the coils so you dont have to keep swapping parts and it dont take any time at all... Its been a while since I worked on a older cobra but Its a 3 wire plug on each coil right?? 1st off I dont know the specs and resistance values from the factory but I'mma say a, b, c, which is looking at the terminal starting from the left, the primary side is the power wire to the coil which should be the center wire b, so probe the b, wire and probe the a, wire. Not the resistance and probe b, and c, wire and note resistance and repeat for the other coil and if the resistance is the about the same on all of them the primary side is good and then probe each coil terminal on the secondary side, and probe the other lead to the coil case and all the resistance should be about the same if they are, the coils are good and you can count them out as a prob. If you have a manual or know some1 that can find the specs find them out and do this test to save you time and trouble of waiting and swapping parts..