xtremerevolution Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 Last night everything was working fine. Today I got into my car, and tried to start it up. When I hit the ignition key, I heard one crank, and nothing else. Every time I'd hit the ignition again, I'd only hear one crank. The battery had a perfect charge, but to be sure I even tried to jump start it from my Bonneville, and had the same problem. Could the starter be bad or seized up? Seems like the engine just doesn't want to turn over when it tries to crank. You can sit there all day hitting that ignition key and you'll only hear one attempted crank each time and nothing else. I'm really glad I have the Bonneville to get to work. Any ideas though? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addicted to eaton Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 Take the belt of and see if it will turn over. Don't let it run for long though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy K Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 x2. what does the oil look like? if the car still won't start... maybe pull all the spark plugs and see if one cylinder is filled with antifreeze or gas. I had an incident with a 3.1 mpfi where a bad fuel injector filled a cylinder with with fuel. and it cranked how you describe. be careful... I clear that cylinder on that car by cranking the motor... and out leaped a fireball!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted August 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 x2. what does the oil look like? if the car still won't start... maybe pull all the spark plugs and see if one cylinder is filled with antifreeze or gas. I had an incident with a 3.1 mpfi where a bad fuel injector filled a cylinder with with fuel. and it cranked how you describe. be careful... I clear that cylinder on that car by cranking the motor... and out leaped a fireball!!!! So every time you hit the ignition switch, the car would try to crank just one shot and that's it? This is quite a strange problem. I'll check the oil again, but I just checked it the other day and it looked perfectly fine. I had just changed the oil on Tuesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy K Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 So every time you hit the ignition switch, the car would try to crank just one shot and that's it? This is quite a strange problem. Yes. It's called hydrolock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addicted to eaton Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 the montecarlo did that it was the a/c compressor froze up. When i took the belt off it turned over fine. Also try using a wrench to turn it over by hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted August 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 So every time you hit the ignition switch, the car would try to crank just one shot and that's it? This is quite a strange problem. Yes. It's called hydrolock. Ok. If it is that problem, I'd wonder how, because the car was working perfectly prior to that. I actually left my girlfriend's house at 2 AM with that car, and tried to start it again at 7 AM. Within 5 hours, the car wouldn't start. That's the strangest part about it. 5 hours is really not that long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted August 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 well I got back home, and it cranked up just fine. I'll update more later tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slick Posted August 29, 2008 Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 Yeah... i'd say it's a bit too extreme to be hydrolocked. Was the vehicle still warm when you attempted to re-start it the first time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted August 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 Yeah... i'd say it's a bit too extreme to be hydrolocked. Was the vehicle still warm when you attempted to re-start it the first time? The first time it happened was at 7:00 AM, roughly 5 hours after I had shut the engine off. It was pretty cool that night so I'm 100% sure it cooled down completely. I had attempted to restart it at around 9:15 PM the same day after I came home from someone's house, and that's when it started up just fine. I hadn't tried it that day since the first time when it wouldn't crank over. I have a few more details to add. At 7:00 AM when it failed to start, the door locks also wouldn't work. I have a Viper V5500 remote start alarm installed, and neither the keyless entry nor the door knobs would power lock or unlock the doors. When I came back later that day at 9:15 PM, the power door locks worked just fine from the keyless remote. However, upon shutting off the car, the blue light that's usually blinking for the alarm stayed constantly lit. In addition to that, locking or unlocking the car wouldn't make the keychain or alarm chirp the way it usually does. Unsure of how to reset the system, I pushed a random series of buttons including the one under the dash that I figure would reset everything, and after a while I managed to get it back to the way it was before, with chirping keychain and alarm, and blinking light and everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slick Posted August 29, 2008 Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 I'm not sure it's your remote start, especially since your locks did not work either. Have you checked all of your battery cables, make sure they are tight? How old is the battery? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted August 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 I'm not sure it's your remote start, especially since your locks did not work either. Have you checked all of your battery cables, make sure they are tight? How old is the battery? The battery cables for sure need to be replaced. They're corroded in a lot of places on the surface, but they still make a good connection. I did make sure to check those, and they are perfectly tight. The battery is about 3 years old. One more thing to mention is that just to test it, I turned on my radio while the key was in the ignition to see if the battery was good, and I cranked it up a pretty good volume with the bass and it definitely seemed to be getting enough power. Headlights were perfectly bright as well. Its not like the door locks were trying to move but weren't; they weren't even responding to anything at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockfangd Posted August 29, 2008 Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 i had a very similair problem with my codealarm starter. When i attempted to crank the car with the key it would just click, but it would start perfect with the remote. come to find out it was an internal problem with the car starter. I couldnt figure it out for the longest time though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AWeb80 Posted August 29, 2008 Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 i'd say elec connection.... We have a POS Diesel shag truck at work I drive and to start it, I have to bang the cables around....otherwise the motor gets one rev before it stops w/ a crank of the key check the wire at the starter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfewtrail Posted August 30, 2008 Report Share Posted August 30, 2008 The remote postive terminal causes a lot of no-start and other odd issues in 94-95 Regals. On my parent's 94 Regal, the damn thing would loosen up every so often and cause a no-start issue. All the resistance from it being loose made it so hot that it was melting the plastic base around it. I ended up adding an extra nut and maybe some washers at the base of it if I remember correctly. It hasn't loosened up at all in the past 2+ yrs since I did that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted September 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 The remote postive terminal causes a lot of no-start and other odd issues in 94-95 Regals. On my parent's 94 Regal, the damn thing would loosen up every so often and cause a no-start issue. All the resistance from it being loose made it so hot that it was melting the plastic base around it. I ended up adding an extra nut and maybe some washers at the base of it if I remember correctly. It hasn't loosened up at all in the past 2+ yrs since I did that. Not sure where that would be located, but I might have to take a look at it. Car didn't start again after I came home last night. I tried to start it after 15 minutes, and no go. I have some more details though. I bent the hood sensor so it would think the hood is still open so I could remote start the car, and the loud clicking noise its making (its not a crank noise after all) is coming from somewhere inside the engine it would appear. I really can't tell because its pretty loud, and just sounds like a clanking noise. The interesting thing is, the starter doesn't even try to crank. I tried turning the motor on my own using a wrench and its not stuck on anything at all. I went back in the car, and sure enough the power locks didn't work anymore. I put the key in the farthest notch before the ignition to see what lights would light up on the dash, and the only one there was the oil light. I checked my oil level, and I've got about 3/4 a quart too much oil in there. Apparently I had forgotten that I topped it off too high to begin with, and I added a decent sized canister of engine restorant (which made a nice difference last time I did it). Could it be refusing to start due to having too much oil in the system? I don't see how that would cause the door locks to stop working though. I'm thinking it has to be something electrical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtremerevolution Posted September 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2008 Power wire from battery to whatever lead is next to the driver's side fuse box was completely loose on the terminal end. Turns out the terminal was too small to begin with, and was only clamped around half the strands in the wire. Don't know how that happened. I'll take pics of it later, but it was nasty. I noticed it when my car shut down on the road while exactly when I tried to high beam someone for cutting me off. Car just died. Luckily, I had a swiss army knife on me so I ghetto rigged it till I got home, after which I had a much thicker replacement wire bought from autozone (probably 4 AWG) lying around which I hadn't installed before because I was lazy and forgot about it. Car works fine now. Stupid me. Time to upgrade the rest of my wires as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AWeb80 Posted September 5, 2008 Report Share Posted September 5, 2008 i'd say elec connection.... We have a POS Diesel shag truck at work I drive and to start it, I have to bang the cables around....otherwise the motor gets one rev before it stops w/ a crank of the key check the wire at the starter I was close Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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