SR5 AE86 Starting Issues

[Oaks]

Hi I am new here and had a question. My friend recently pick up an SR5, Drove it all day and then had a problem. The overfill tank next to the radiator was filled with coolant and water and proceeded to get everywhere. His air filter saucer had coolant in it. He wiped it all done and tried to start her back up. Well it didn't start.

Battery is fine. It gets spark. We took filter off to try and start it and still nothing. It cranks and turns over but doesn't want to catch idle. What can play a role is this situation.

How bad can coolant be in the carb?
What can be done to make sure no coolant got in the cylinders?

I was thinking of just spraying some carb cleaner in the carb and trying to start her up to see if that would help, but wanted some input first.

[corolla_nut_83]

Glad to hear you are new to the site!!! First I would say, if the engine cranks over, there will not be any coolant in the cylinders!! If you are getting spark that means youe have a good crank/cam signal to your coil and it is also firing!! Obviously make sure the spark will jump a haalf inch gap. Next, try sprying some carb cleaner or starting fluid down the carb. Also you can make sure your carb is being fed gas. This engine has a mechanical fuel pump driven by the cam, when the engine is cranking, the fuel pump will pump fuel to the carb! Take off the air cleaner and look in the carb while you crank it over, you should see fuel being sprayed down into the main barrell.

If you aren't getting fuel in the carb, you might check and see if the cam is turning by removing the oil cap and look into the engine and watch the cam as you crank it over to see if it is turning. If it isn't the timing belt probably broke!

[Oaks]

Thank you very much I had thought of trying most of what you said. I'll use this when I'm at his house and we can figure it out. Thanks for the responce and I'll let you know how it turns out.

[hardtopte72]

Sounds to me like a blown headgasket. Sounds like there was compression going through the radiator and blowing water all over the place. That would explain a hard start and bad idle. If coolant is in the cylinders or compression is leaking out.