#1289 - A story of rebirth

Just keep it simple, once you have it running right you will forget about the trouble it gave you.
 
Just got off the phone with the shop.. they said "so far its testing as a bad crankshaft position sensor"

I just put a brand new one on.. provided I bought it online, that still sounds fishy.. they said they will call me in the morning to let me know for sure.. I have this bad feeling they will put a new $100 OEM one on and then it continues to test as a bad sensor.. but who knows.. maybe the new one I bought is bad.. but I doubt it. I made SURE that magnt didn't touch ANYTHING when I installed it, and I was EXTREMELY gentle with the entire part.

.. but back to their diagnosis... the old one AND the new one are bad?

I don't suppose there is anything that could make diagnostics THINK its a bad sensor.. and really be something else... is there?

If they don't have it sorted out tomorrow, I'm going to a Mazda dealership and bending over.. lmao.


Edit: After brainstorming and rereading this thread.. Now I am wondering if VALK was right, when he mentioned the orange piece inside the connector.. if that orange piece is on the wiring harness side of things, that actually would make perfect sense.. but as far as making sure "its on right" the connector only goes on 1 way.. so its on there correctly..

I have my other key.. the shop is closed but when I drove by the car is outside.. I may just see about that orange thingy on my way home tonight..

If thats all it is I am slapping myself.. and the shop will probably be wondering "what in the heck" when they notice the MSP is gone tomorrow morning. I wonder if I owe them anything yet... lmao.

Edit: LOL.. no it didn't start. exactly the same.. connector was fine
 
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Update:

The shop said they "think" its the crankshaft position sensor, but there is "no definite test for it"

Sounds like they don't wanna mess with it. They did say the ECU was communicating with the OBD2 scanner though... so I suppose thats good news..

Towed it back to my house. I will give it another go before I got the Mazda dealership route.
 
hey if you are in the charlotte area check out a shop called CMD Automotive they helped me tons with my two proteges I think they can help you too.
 
Thanks for the tip..

Got it home today and gave it a try.. "click" is all I got.

Took the battery to autozone.. they said its still good (but it was 3.5 years old) I replaced it anyways.. (I don't like to wait for failure)

So I am looking for a bad ground / replacing the starter.

0% messing around right now..

Ordered a timing belt / water pump kit.. I think I am gonna install that next if I still can't get this started (just to verify I didn't "jump" timing somehow.. and also because the current timing belt looks old) thats what it was

Ordered a couple M8 1.25 taps so I can work on these broken bolts.

At some point a compression test is happening..

Ripping that lug nut off one way or another tomorrow as well..

Hopefully good news is coming soon
 
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Well, I think I may have sorted out the problem. I hit the magic black button and put in a fresh battery and gave it a shot. No start.

Decided to pull the plugs and see if I am getting spark. The plugs in cylinders 1 & 3 (the slave wire cylinders) were wet and smelled like gas.. I looked down into the cylinder and saw a puddle of fuel in the respective cylinders



OK.. so I am getting fuel. That means the crankshaft position sensor is good if I am not mistaken? anyways, cleaned off the plugs and I checked spark on cylinder 1's spark plug. In about a 3-5 second crank, I got 1 tiny spark.. it looked really weak and I am 90% sure you should see more than that.

Starting to think this is a coil pack issue... so I continued looking around and decided to take a second look at the fuse box

Noticed the MAIN fuse didn't look "straight".. it looked cocked to the side.. pulled it out and found



WOW. That doesn't look good. I wonder when that happened..

Looking at the relay itself, plastic melted to the connector tabs




So hopefully autozone or someone keeps these in stock...

I still wanna replace the coil packs now.. idk. hopefully I can replace this relay and START!
 
It's pretty common for the terminals in the fuse box to look like that. You can test a relay easily, just plug it in and if you hear it click when the contacts touch it works.
 
Cleaned everything up and plugged it all back in.. same coil packs..


this time the engine didn't start, but made a "boom" noise.

I found that the intercooler pipe from the intercooler to the throttle body has a large crack in it and smoke was coming out of this hole..

What a nightmare.

I guess I am going to buy new coil packs and I will 100mph tape the hole closed for now.

Edit.. ordered FMIC and piping kit.. If I have to take this to Mazda in the future, I will have the timing belt / water pump already installed (so they don't blame that and try to charge me)

Same thing with replacing these plastic hot and cold pipes.. I don't want to drop it off and them tell me I need new ones (and try to replace them with the plastic kind)

Kind of ridiculous putting a FMIC on a car that doesn't start.. but I want to be a step ahead of the dealership if thats where this car ends up
 
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It's possible the timing belt broke or chewed the teeth off the inside. Have you removed the valve cover?
 
Yes, I replaced the valve cover gasket last week.

I just got done doing a compression test.. I have 0. Thats right.. zero. my buddy said while I cranked it, the compression test gauge didn't move at all..

Starting to think I flooded / washed the cylinder walls.. it explains the faster than normal cranking, explains zero compression in all cylinders..

that or I "skipped" timing. <----- yup

My buddy wants to use the compression tester on his truck anyways, so I will find out tomorrow if those were accurate readings or not. (its a rented autozone compression tester)

In the meantime, I am waiting on a new timing belt...


Tomorrow I will pull the valve cover back off.. I will check the timing..

Starting to shop for a new motor...


EDIT: Also, I verified the pistons are WHERE they are supposed to be.. relative to each other. I used the long piece of 10mm rod to tap the tops of the pistons.. I don't hear one that is more "hollow" than another.. I am 95% sure the bottom end is fine. (minus the whole leaking cylinders and all)
 
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I'll get in there tomorrow. I am gonna go ahead and start the breakdown process for the timing belt.. maybe I'll find the timing is off.. otherwise I think I have to pull the head..
 
This happened to me when I timed to the dots instead of letters. Timing belt either gone or tensioner let go thus timing belt gone.
Timing kit cheap. Don't take head off till you verify
 
Well, the compression tool works, so I have to assume my readings are correct. I am just hoping to not have to buy a new motor.. although I found one with 75K on the clock for $650 shipped.

IDK if thats a good deal, being as I haven't checked orice locally.. its the holiday, so the yards are closed today. I will likely call tomorrow, unless I find the timing is off today.

EDIT.. got in there enough to see that there are teeth on the belt.. I have no idea how healthy it is, or it if is on time (its hot out and I worked a lot yesterday)
I will mess with it when the sun goes down (I'm kind of nocturnal)
 
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It could be stripped down by the crank, verify the cams and belt turn when the motor cranks over
 
OK.. so I took the valve cover off and the spark plugs out and turned the motor by the crankshaft. The camshafts were turning.. I took a piece of 10mm rod (the battery hold down) and let it "sit" on top of piston 1 (the one closest to the timing belt).

When I had the proper lines on the cams line up (I on the left, for intake, and E on the right, for exhaust) ----> ( I -) (- E )

At no point (and I turned the motor around 10 times) was piston 1 at TDC. Every time it ended up being somewhere between TDC and BDC.. closer to TDC, but about 3/4" off (meaning piston 1 still had another 3/4" of travel left to TDC when the cams were lines up.

I went one step forward and checked the cams at every moment piston 1 was at TDC.. there was never any type of correlation between the cams at any instance of P1 at TDC..

WTF? How could this happen?? Maybe the tensioner gave out? I still haven't looked that deep. All teeth on the timing belt are there.. It does seem a bit loose though.. maybe its stretched out..


I guess the only move is to do this timing belt change.. get it all lined up and reassemble and retest compression.. I was really expecting the motor to be on time and the problem was washed cylinder walls.. I wonder about the health of the head and valves..

The turbo looked like s***. About 2mm thick of caked on oil / dirt.

Good times though, right?

Progress at least.

EDIT: I want to note that when I started having problems a week or so ago, my boss jump straight to "I think it jumped timing"... Everyone else (including myself) were like "NAHHHH..."

He's going to have a field day with this. (and I know he'll ask tomorrow)
 
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Yeah man sounds like your boss nailed it. Jumped timing. Did you get a new tensioner? You better do it while you are doing the belt and water pump. Good news is it is a non interference motor so you head/valve train will be fine.
 
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