'95 Wagon V6 - No Spark

[troverman]

Hi,

First post. Not familiar with Toyotas, but am very familiar with European cars. Anyway, I'm trying to help an older guy who's Camry was affected by the Hurricane Irene flooding in Vermont.

The car ran fine the day of the storm (he drove it in the morning); then is sat until the day after. The water rose to the level of the door sills on the car and wet the carpets, but that was all. It quickly receded. The car will no longer start.

The car is a '95 Camry Wagon V6 with 174k miles. It cranks over well, but doesn't try to fire. I pulled the return hose off the fuel rail and it pours out gas when the engine is cranked. Therefore, fuel pump works. Also, I pulled a spark plug. Electrode is wet with gasoline. Fuel injectors are thus seemingly fine. I conclude the problem is not fuel. Airbox is also fine. Problem is not air.

This car has a coil pack above each spark plug. It also has this module labeled "Igniter" mounted under the hood on the driver's side fender area. What does this module do?

With the coil pack removed and laying on top of the valve cover, I placed the spark plug in the boot and had someone else crank the motor...I saw no spark arcing across the electrode tip. Perhaps the plug needed to be grounded somehow?

I checked the 15A fuse in the under-hood box, for EFI. Fuse is good, 12V across. The 7.5A fuse behind the ashtray is also good, but seems to only put out about 1.4V. Maybe a bad ground on my meter?

The computer seems to be located behind the glovebox in a shiny metal box. This was well above any water that entered the vehicle and did not get wet.

Any ideas? What causes no spark on these motors? Any advice is appreciated.

[dc_98_cam]

Try to get spark by placing plug on the engine block or some other good ground ...
The valve cover might not be sufficiently grounded ... due to gasket or silicone.

Igniter is something like electronic version of mechanical points ... controls primary current in individual coils ... interrupts coil current to generate spark.

You might check the 10A Start fuse ... not sure but this might be located behind the left kick panel beneath the driver dash.

[troverman]

Thanks for the info. I'll check. Anyone else?