95 astro starting issues

[boilrman2]

I am a newbie here, but found your site a while ago and have been lurking thru posts to help fix issues when needed. I have owned 3 astros now, bought a new 95, used 01 and currently have another 95 with 217K mi. For all the info I am planning to list, probably going to be a long post.

About 3 weeks ago, van had been running great. Wife drove it home on a Friday night and all was good. Wife went out Sat morning and van would crank over, but not fire. When I got to it, same thing crank, no fire.(Temp overnight did drop into the 20's) Pulled things apart and hooked up fuel pressure gauge, 60psi(fuel pump AC Delco about 1 yr old) pulled coil wire from Distr, good spark. reconnected wire, pulled #4 wire laid wire against manifold, cranked engine and it started. shut engine down and restarted engine, but now running rough. (About 13 mo ago did complete tuneup including plugs, wires, cap, rotor and real issue at that point was ignition module.) Shut off and restarted several times, restarted without fail, but ran rough. took van to in laws(about 2 mi) and let it run(about 10 min idle) to see if it would come out of it, stall, anything to help troubleshoot. No luck. Drove back to house but noticed lack of power. Changed spark plugs, no change. Couldnt find reason, so decided to "let it ride" as wife works in town and would look at it later when issues arise again.

Well, Monday wife was headed to work when van just died while driving and would not restart. Went by lot van was in to see if it would start, hit a bit right at start, but would not light, just crank. finally go to look at it today. again checked fuel pressure, 60psi. checked for spark and saw leakage where wire enters boot on coil wire, went to parts store got new wires. Coil now nice blue spark, with no spark at plugs, Ohmed pick up coil-good, Van has NO crank sensor, took ignition module loose found a bubble on top, got new replacement, no spark. bought new cap and rotor with brass terminals, spark, but no run. checked oil pressure sensor, could not get 1 Ohm reading at 0 psi, replaced with new, still no start. Finally poured fuel down intake and got van to fire, ran rough and when trying to give fuel puffed big cloud of smoke out intake. After several restarts van runs fantastic, smooth. Did notice that fuel pressure while running was about 55-57 psi. Went back to store and bought new fuel filter as it was not replaced when I did pump approx 1 year ago. Going to change it and see if pressure improves. I am going to let van sit overnight and see what it does in the morning, if no start will put fuel down intake again to see if it will fire again.

This is where I am at. Also I changed spider about 1 year ago also. Sure there is probably something I have checked and forgot to post. Still not sure what fixed the issue for the moment. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Chad

[93xtmoney]

Welcome. Someone here will help.

[paintdrying]

I initial thought was plug wires. Then I was thinking you need to check the fuel pressure while driving it. So change the fuel filter then the oil. You will figure it out.

[boilrman2]

Well as of this morning all seems well. Fired first time and seems to run well. Will put everything back in place this afternoon, get oil changed and take it from there. Read in another post of how it was possible cylinder walls were washed down and think maybe that is what happened to mine.

In about 01 after paying dealer $700 for spider replacement and a set of plugs, I have been doing my own engine work. Have always done brakes and the little things. Have come to know these vans a bit.

[Big_kid]

Welcome aboard!

[redfury]

After all that work, my first thought was the distrubutor gear getting "knife edged" especially when it coughed up the ghost through the intake when gas was poured in. You may want to pull the distributor out and check the condition of the gears. Make sure you mark where the distributor was sitting before you pull it, so that you can put it back in properly if you do decide to pull it.

If the distributor is firing the plugs, but firing them at the wrong time, you aren't going to get a good start condition, it can cough up through the throttle and the raw fuel is putting the fuel charge in the cylinder before the injector would normally.

[boilrman2]

Took van for a ride before putting everything back together. Idle, shifting everything seems great. Fuel pressure was bouncing between 56-60 upon acceleration. Buttoned it all up for now.

Is the oil pressure switch something that would have stopped engine when it failed?

[Phantom]

Is the oil pressure switch something that would have stopped engine when it failed?

It could have been , when the oil pressure gets to 4 psi and below the engine will shut down , fuel supply will be shut off

[boilrman2]

Well, back in same boat once again. It sat in my drive for a week because it was stumbling badly right after startup. Wife got in it Friday it started and ran great. She drove a good 50 mi with it throughout the day. Sat morning no start. New ignition coil yesterday got it running, stopped and started from three locations and then it died on the road and needed towed home again. I have spark, newer plugs, wires, ign module, cap, rotor, oil pressure sensor. About only thing I havent changed is pick up coil and/or distributor. motor has 218K on it. Distributor shaft will lift and turn about 1/8" after lifted very little wiggle room. I have seen on web where the coil to module connector(2 wire) has been a culprit for some. Also it seems I am only getting 6 volts, which I know is not right.

[DJSteve]

I had a similar issue on my 94 a few years ago... injector had been replaced right before I bought the van and only had about 30-35k on it so I was convinced that was fine and pulled my hair out trying to find an ignition problem. Eventually gave up and took it to a dealer, whose diagnosis was that the timing chain had skipped a tooth. I was pretty skeptical so didn't have them fix it; eventually turned out that the plating was eroded on the electrical terminal on the injector assembly so it wasn't always getting fuel. As I finally started to figure out what was going on, I discovered that if it died or wouldn't start I could yank on the wires that go to the injector (they come out the front drivers side of the lower manifold) and it would temporarily fix the problem. At one point I had tied a piece of heavy string onto the connector to facilitate this until I could fix it properly. If you search my posts you can probably find a thread or two related to the saga.