Help Engine Not Starting, No Spark

[jcfarnham]

I have a 1995 Celica that I've owned about 6 months. Great car until it broke down last week. It's an automatic and it spluttered to a stop as I was pulling into a car park (how polite). I've traced the problem to the ignition not creating a spark (removed and observed spark plug while engine turning over), but cannot find root cause. I replaced the engine management system this morning to no avail. A passerby mentioned that the 'igniter' which is built into the distributor casing might be the root cause of the problem. However, the local O'Reilly's couldn't find the part he was talking about.

Does anyone have any good ideas on how I could better trace the problem? Or suggestions of other areas I should look at?

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

Jon Crossley

[RobMilkshakes]

The plug was grounded when you checked for spark correct?

Sometimes stores list the ignitor as an ignition module. Different names for more or less the same thing.

I can send you the testing procedures for the ignition system if you'd like so you can test those components yourself without blindly replacing things

[Bitter]

1.8 or 2.2?

[jcfarnham]

Rob - I would very much appreicate the testing procedure.
Btter - It's a 2.2.

I'm going ahead and replacing the ignition coil. I already replaced the control module that sits up against the firewall. The ignition coil sits within the distribution assembly.

Do you happen to know if I need to remove the entire distributor to replace this module? I've removed the distributor cap, rotor, and shroud. So I can see the ignition coil, but can't see a way to remove it without taking the whole distributor off.

I'm okay to do that if needed. I just wanted to avoid having any chance of messing up the timing. I can mark it and so forth, but history tells me, despite best instructions, I have some personal mental block on setting up timing.


Thanks for your help.

Jon

[RobMilkshakes]

PM sent.