Hello r3vlimited,
I'm new to the forum and semi new to the e30 world. I figured this would make a great first post, so here it goes.
This isn't really a problem thread as I was able to figure out the issue and fix it. I wanted to share what I ran into, so hopefully it will help someone else fix their headache.
I have a 86 325es, and when I bought the car, it ran smooth as silk. Kind if surprised me, but I was game, especially for the price. A few months down the road all her demons started to surface. She started up fine, ran great, but once the cold start injector stopped, it started to miss fire like crazy. I would usually be able to clear it out by revving the motor above 3k, but the miss fire would eventually come back. Once it was completely warmed up, the misfire would stop for the most part. It would resurface periodically during the drive, but would clear up with a little revving. I did a complete tune up, including cap, rotor and wires to see if it would help the situation, but to no avail.
About two months ago, the headache intensified. The motor would completely shut off while driving. All the electronics were still operational, but the motor would quit and the tach would drop to 0. I'm going arou 70mph when this first happened, so it was a little hairy to say the least. I cycled the key off then on again and the motor kicked back to life. No starter engagement, it was as if you flip a switch. I didn't think anything of it until it did it again about a week later. This time was worse. Not only did the motor shut off like before, it started stalling like crazy while driving. Almost like it shut itself off, but decided it was kidding and remained running.
The next day I go to start it, nothing. The engine cranks, but doesn't fire up. After a few tries, it starts to catch, but doesn't fully start. I go through this for a few days, in the midst of me testing different things to see if they're the culprit.
First thing I checked was if I had fuel or spark. Feel was ther, and spark was intermittent. I checked the relays and they worked perfectly. Fuel pumps were great, pressure regulator(I think that's the name for it) was working perfectly. I just replaced the ignition system, so that couldn't be it, but I checked it anyway. Still working like a charm. I narrowed it down to the coil. Power was getting to the coil, but it was sending spark. It seemed as if it wasn't grounded properly. Coil not sending any sparks, tach not receiving any signal, so I checked my grounds and the were great as well.
I changed out the coil and that wasn't the issue. So I narrowed it down to either the DME, the crank or reference sensor, or a loose wire in between. I decided to change the crank sensor out first. The crank sensor is the bottom sensor, located in the transmission bell housing. Pretty easy change. Once I switched it out, she fired right up. So far so good. I haven't had any issues, so it looks like the sensor was the culprit.
Hopefully this post helps anyone going through the same thing. It could have been a number of the parts I tested, so make sure you test everything. A little testing can save a lot of replacing. I look forward to any comments and posting in the future.
Cheers!
I'm new to the forum and semi new to the e30 world. I figured this would make a great first post, so here it goes.
This isn't really a problem thread as I was able to figure out the issue and fix it. I wanted to share what I ran into, so hopefully it will help someone else fix their headache.
I have a 86 325es, and when I bought the car, it ran smooth as silk. Kind if surprised me, but I was game, especially for the price. A few months down the road all her demons started to surface. She started up fine, ran great, but once the cold start injector stopped, it started to miss fire like crazy. I would usually be able to clear it out by revving the motor above 3k, but the miss fire would eventually come back. Once it was completely warmed up, the misfire would stop for the most part. It would resurface periodically during the drive, but would clear up with a little revving. I did a complete tune up, including cap, rotor and wires to see if it would help the situation, but to no avail.
About two months ago, the headache intensified. The motor would completely shut off while driving. All the electronics were still operational, but the motor would quit and the tach would drop to 0. I'm going arou 70mph when this first happened, so it was a little hairy to say the least. I cycled the key off then on again and the motor kicked back to life. No starter engagement, it was as if you flip a switch. I didn't think anything of it until it did it again about a week later. This time was worse. Not only did the motor shut off like before, it started stalling like crazy while driving. Almost like it shut itself off, but decided it was kidding and remained running.
The next day I go to start it, nothing. The engine cranks, but doesn't fire up. After a few tries, it starts to catch, but doesn't fully start. I go through this for a few days, in the midst of me testing different things to see if they're the culprit.
First thing I checked was if I had fuel or spark. Feel was ther, and spark was intermittent. I checked the relays and they worked perfectly. Fuel pumps were great, pressure regulator(I think that's the name for it) was working perfectly. I just replaced the ignition system, so that couldn't be it, but I checked it anyway. Still working like a charm. I narrowed it down to the coil. Power was getting to the coil, but it was sending spark. It seemed as if it wasn't grounded properly. Coil not sending any sparks, tach not receiving any signal, so I checked my grounds and the were great as well.
I changed out the coil and that wasn't the issue. So I narrowed it down to either the DME, the crank or reference sensor, or a loose wire in between. I decided to change the crank sensor out first. The crank sensor is the bottom sensor, located in the transmission bell housing. Pretty easy change. Once I switched it out, she fired right up. So far so good. I haven't had any issues, so it looks like the sensor was the culprit.
Hopefully this post helps anyone going through the same thing. It could have been a number of the parts I tested, so make sure you test everything. A little testing can save a lot of replacing. I look forward to any comments and posting in the future.
Cheers!
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