96 Riv has fuel pressure and spark but WONT START

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum. My name is Steve I live in Minneapolis, MN and I have a 96 Riv supercharged with 133K on it. A week ago I drove through a rather large puddle (we got 3 inches of rain in a hour) and my car was running fine until about 20 minutes later. The RPMs were jumping from about 500-1500 and I had alot of hesiatation when I hit the gas. I pulled over and shut the car off, it hasnt started since! I have spark to all 6 plugs, 45psi fuel pressure at the rail, plugs were wet with fuel when I checked them, it has compression. It wont even try to catch! Looked underneath and everything seems ok nothing is wet. It just cranks and cranks and cranks at a fast speed but wont start! This is my daily driver and I NEED to get it going ASAP! Any help is greatly appreciated!

i dont know much about spark and all that,but i can tell you that sometimes after a bath if you spray wd40 around all the electrical connections including the grounds she might fire up. if u can get a squirt of the stuff in the crank sensor area that be good too! try it. worse thing could happen is a greasy engine....

I would suspect the crank sensor.

The crank sensor can fail and you will still have spark. You only have a 1 in 6 chance of the timing being correct after the sensor failure IIRC.
Maybe that the water was high enough to short it out.

robotennis61: Unplug and spray in the electrical connectors? or just spray around the sensors? Rickw: Is there a wat to test the crank sensor? And do you have to remove the harmonic balancer to take it out? The water was at least a foot deep, which I'm sure burried the sensor. Like I said I've tried just about anyhting I or anyone I've talked to can think of with no results and it's been a week! The crank sensor is $35 at napa but I dont want to waste 35 bucks if its not going to help. Thanks for the quick replies guys! I apreciate the help, hopefully the riv will be on the road again soon!

as said before, make sure the crank sensor is plugged in still and that the harmonic balancer isnt bad. if the rubber on it deteriorates then it can rotate at an odd speed causing the sensor to misread and the car will never start.
A bad balancer would also explain the rpm fluctuation and hesitation.

The sensor is plugged in and dry, the balancer appears to look ok too.

first inspect the electrical connections in the engine bay. pay close attention to the lower ones. if you find any with questionable rubber seals. open and spray electrical cleaner into connector. as far as the other connectors,if they look ok,just spray them with wd to displace the acumulated moisture and spray the ground connections. and that should be it.if youwent through a foot of water. just let her dry out. using compressed air blow out the alternator.

I crawled under the car and unplugged everything last night. Nothing was wet or damaged, sprayed electronic cleaner in all the connections and let it dry overnight. All the rubber seals on the connectors were fine. The car has been sitting in my garage for a week and Ive had a fan blowing on it. Is there any way to test the crank sensor? Ive had several people tell me thats my problem and seeing that everything else I've loked at or tested has been ok.....

can u get some chemicals in the CS area? try that

Does the car start with the crank position sensor harness unplugged.? Try that, if it starts replace the sensor.
If it doesn't start that doesn't mean the sensor still isn't bad though.
But if certain circuits internally in the sensor are shorted out it can start when you remove the connector and confirm it is the sensor.
Their is a lengthy procedure in the FSM for testing output of the sensor and related wiring. I'm assuming you don't have the FSM so I would pay the $30.00 on a new sensor and give a try.

Ye I unplugged the CS nd sprayed electronic cleaner in it and the plug and let it sit and dry overnight with a fan blowing onit. RICK: I am heading out to the garage in a minute to try your advice, hopefully it works! Ill post back soon.

Unplugged the CPS and nothing, still cranks just fine but won't even TRY to fire! Any other ideas?

I'd put my money on a crank sensor. Probably fried.

check the cylinders for fuel though. Spark and fuel are both needed, miss one and you get the dreaded no start.

I like to test for fuel by using a 8" piece of vacuum hose connected to the LIM port. Have someone try to start the car while you mist brake cleaner (highly flammable) into the tube.. if the car starts and or you can keep it kinda of running, the issue is fuel.

(Rick..1:6 is cam sensor BTW )

BillBoost37 wrote:

(Rick..1:6 is cam sensor BTW )

Thanks Bill, I couldn't remember for sure. Should have looked it up before posting.

Rick..if I hadn't unplugged it somehow while doing a water pump, I would not know it. =0)

Just for the heck of it, try removing the battery cable for a while and then reconnect it.

Bert

I'm kind of wondering if it's the PCM. No idea, though.

Albertj

you had mentioned that the spark plugs were wet with fuel, just double check that you have injector pulse, just because you have fuel pressure at the rail doesn't mean the injectors are firing. If you have pulse to injectors I would go with replacing the crank sensor as everyone else has mentioned.

If the plugs are wet, there's injector pulse.

Bill: where is the port on the LIM you speak of?

Passenger side, under the supercharger snout.
Should be a vacuum tee that you can remove. Put a longer piece of vacuum hose on the fitting and spray brake or carb cleaner in there while someone else try's and start the car.
Need to modulate the amount of fluid correctly so car will run. Will run rough but will run if you have good ignition system.
If it won't run replace the crank sensor.

I sprayed brake cleaner in the LIM and it sounded the closest to starting it has in a week. Tried to catch but did not run. It sputtered and then shot the brake cleaner back out of the line. Tired several times and the same thing kept happening. So I'm assuming it's crank sensor replacement time??

steve96 wrote:

So I'm assuming it's crank sensor replacement time??

Yep, that's what I would do.