Posted by Agent Skelly I have all craftsman tools...

Here at the casa I have basically nothing but craftsman.

I have a lot of Snap On, some Mastercraft, and getting a decent collection of Power Fist... PF FTW!

Posted by Agent Skelly I have all craftsman tools...

those are noob tools you fail

Posted by Nismo those are noob tools you fail

So? They still rock!

I think Princess Auto should sell Power Fist jackets. Everyone has a Snap On jacket, I want a Power Fist one!

i want a car that runs.
i got my Cavalier back this afternoon. Picked it up, drove 3 miles, shut it off to go in a store. Came out and it refused to start. Had the car ten minutes! TEN MINUTES! Called the garage back from the last payphone in the known universe and was hopping mad, but polite. They said they'd call a wrecker and I told them I wasn't paying the tow bill as I had been assured the car was done. They agreed are paying the tow bill...

the only thing i can think of is that the ignition module was on its way out too.

i'm pretty much at a loss at this point.

Posted by Samurai i want a car that runs. i got my Cavalier back this afternoon. Picked it up, drove 3 miles, shut it off to go in a store. Came out and it refused to start. Had the car ten minutes! TEN MINUTES! Called the garage back from the last payphone in the known universe and was hopping mad, but polite. They said they'd call a wrecker and I told them I wasn't paying the tow bill as I had been assured the car was done. They agreed are paying the tow bill... the only thing i can think of is that the ignition module was on its way out too. i'm pretty much at a loss at this point.

Hey, At least you didn't wake up every day for the last week or two straight to find your car MISSING and have to call every member in your family to see which one took it. It got so bad I just took the fuel pump fuse out and carried it with me. Then they called a tow truck without talking to me because it (obviously) wouldn't start.... Well, I woke up, walked out to my car, put the fuse in, started it and drove away as the truck pulled up. They were pissed. But I've still managed to convince them that there is a "special trick" to starting it when it's cold out....

Posted by Sinister Crayon Hey, At least you didn't wake up every day for the last week or two straight to find your car MISSING and have to call every member in your family to see which one took it. It got so bad I just took the fuel pump fuse out and carried it with me. Then they called a tow truck without talking to me because it (obviously) wouldn't start.... Well, I woke up, walked out to my car, put the fuse in, started it and drove away as the truck pulled up. They were pissed. But I've still managed to convince them that there is a "special trick" to starting it when it's cold out....

Personally, after having a screwdriver jammed up under my door handle, I pull relays out of the fuse block under the hood. Until I rig up my magnetic kill switch.

Posted by Bustedknuckle Personally, after having a screwdriver jammed up under my door handle, I pull relays out of the fuse block under the hood. Until I rig up my magnetic kill switch.

Yeah, They caught on this morning. Now I'm looking for another method to disable my car....

Posted by Sinister Crayon Yeah, They caught on this morning. Now I'm looking for another method to disable my car....

take the battery out of it.

I used to have a little toggle switch hidden under the dash of my VW Fox... simple, but effective... only because the car started with a screwdriver.

Now that I think about it, I should have left instructions AND a screwdriver. That was a terrible car.

Posted by bandi I used to have a little toggle switch hidden under the dash of my VW Fox... simple, but effective... only because the car started with a screwdriver. Now that I think about it, I should have left instructions AND a screwdriver. That was a terrible car.

ha, I knew a guy who had 2 Foxes. One blew up after something like 300,000 miles and the other had a junk transmission. He swore by those cars. Ive spent a good amount of time working on them.

Posted by Bustedknuckle ha, I knew a guy who had 2 Foxes. One blew up after something like 300,000 miles and the other had a junk transmission. He swore by those cars. Ive spent a good amount of time working on them.

LOL... The Fox... another attempt at VW to find a halfway good compact car. These things were fucking garbage.

i know we laugh about VW electrical gremlins, but these cars weren't just cursed, they were beaten with a gremlin hammer!!!

My Fox was the worst car I've ever owned BY FAR, and I've owned over 100 cars. It literally had a different problem every day, until the day it caught on fire.

I took an axe to it before I towed it to the scrapyard. It felt great.

They were actually sold with an air cooled flat 4 Beetle engine in Brazil.

Posted by Samurai take the battery out of it.

Haha, need something quick. It's too cold.

Umm...hmm...Distributor cap?
If it's old enough to have one anyway.
Forgive me for not knowing enough about newer cars, the most I remember from learning about cars is a 4 barrel carburetor and checking the wires on the distributor cap when they won't start.
If it were anything like the old cars my family drove for years, we'd change distributor cap or spark plug wires like every other week.
You could try that, a spark plug wire or 4 could stop it from starting....or just pull the plugs all together, if I remember correctly, spark plug removal is fast and simple. A wrench and that's all you need.

Shael

or if its not Distributor Ignition, you could remove each individual coil pack

Posted by Bustedknuckle or if its not Distributor Ignition, you could remove each individual coil pack

Cavaliers 2.2L OHV engines are arranged with two coil packs mounted on the ignition module which is bolted to the cylinder head on the driver's side. Each coil pack has two posts and each pack fires at the same time. 1 and 3 fire at the same time, 2 and 4 fire at the same time. It's called a waste-spark setup. Older 2.2L OHV Cavaliers had the same setup mounted on the backside/firewall side of the engine, bolted directly to the engine block, still utilized the same firing arrangement. Now, with my car, i am really at a loss.
first thing you look at in a turn over, but no start is the crank module. This is a pickup that measures where the wheel mounted on the crankshaft. This wheel tells the computer/module when to fire. That was replaced. Next was the computer, which seemed to make sense based on the history of pre mid-98 Cavaliers and their dubious computer mounting location. That was done. The car started several times for the garage and started for me. I drove the car ten minutes and then the engine refusd to restart. This leaves but on culprit: the ignition module.
I say ignition module, because in the case of GM coil packs, they give fair warning when they begin to fail. There will be sputtering and skipping when the coils warm up. Most notable, the coils will crack around the bolt holes that secure them to the ignition module. This was not the case. The car ran fine, outstanding even, until I shut the engine down and attempted to restart it.


and it pisses me off.
i spoke with the mechanic at the garage this morning and they are having some personnel problems, so that means that with one tech to twenty cars to be fixed, the Cavalier could be sitting awhile.

crank-no starts are a bitch, noid lights, fuel pressure gauges spark testers.......glad I dont have to work today

the Cavalier has returned home. As it turned out, the car had a remote starter installed some time in the dim distant past and that series of wires had fuxored the harness leading from the keyswitch to the ignition module/etc. Running of a new wire or two and the Cavalier has returned.

I have CHECK ENGINE light still, but that's because there is a hole in the gas tank... the EVAP sensor is having a hernia over it.