Newbie, 1991 Previa won't start

[PREV91RH]

1991 PREVIA, looks pretty good. Trying to get it on the road. Last owner drove it up to about two years ago and then parked it. We jumpered the battery, it started right up, I bought it, trailered it home, drove it around the yard a couple of days, got the license plates, then pttt! It will not start.

Battery charger on it and it spins real fast, but never fires. Maybe once or twice I heard what I thought was almost a fire of one cylinder or so, very short sput.

After I finally found the engine... I took off the plug wires, looked good. Took off the distributor cap and other than grease and oil on the outside, which I cleaned off good, the inside looked OK, other than the rotor must not run on a true center of the cap because two of the inner points of the dist cap were worn smooth to the inner phenolic surface and the top two had no visible sign of contact at all, so I suspect it had been running this way for a long time.

It looks like the ignition coil had been mounted upside down at one time because the distr spark wire was touching the tight ground wire that grounds the outside body of the ignition coil. I remounted it properly but still it does not fire. I pulled one plug wire and with a couple of screw drivers tried to see if there was any spark, which I never saw, but that test was one of the times that I thought that it might have almost fired, so I reasembled everything and said Oh Boy it's going to work! Wrong.

So to me it seems like it is an ignition problem, but it could be something else entirely. For instance I have cranked and cranked and cranked it many times and I still have never smelled any gas smell. Seems like it would flood after so many times, but I have no idea what to look for.

I live in the boonies and there ain't no Toyota mechanic within many miles, I would have a couple of hundred dollar tow job to even have it looked at. One of the forum messages that I found suggested a broken timing chain, but I had my neighbor crank it over while I went under to watch the distr rotor and it seems to turn nice and even with the cranking. Is there such a thing as perhaps jumping a timing chain cog? And if so, how would I be able to check that?

All offers of assistance, or donations of huge piles of cash, would be greatly appreciated!

Presuming I do get it going, then I want to order some ignition parts just to be safe, so I would appreciate any references to reputable and fair online parts houses for this old beastie girl.

Thanks in advance.

PREV91RH

[PREV91RH]

It's me again, same problem.

I have narrowed it down to "No Spark." At least I can't see any with a couple of screwdrivers in the plug wire to ground.

What makes the Ignition Coil pulse? Seems like there has to be some kind of switch or something in the computer that would make it pulse and then generate the spark to go to the distributor.

I did pull the distributor cap off and the rotor looks like it turns nice and even.

I'm stuck. Got no wheels to go to town to buy a book or parts or anything.

Hope someone has some ideas.

Thanks.

[kamesama980]

the distributor is the switch. as it comes to each contact, it closes the circuit and voila, spark. could have a bad ignition coil. get a new cap and roter asap. you said you didnt get any gas smell, i wonder if the fuel pump took a dump on you afte rthe first couple days? or a fuel line, electical connection, etc. try pulling the codes too (short t1 and e1 i think) and count flashes of the CEL. crawl underneath and start searching for bad wires and hoses

[PREV91RH]

Thanks for the reply and good comments.

This morning I unplugged the input to the Ignition Coil and put a good 12 volt DC voltmeter on the input wires going to the Ignition Coil, and no voltage is present when cranking.

Does anyone know of an online schematic that might give me some clues as to where to look for a problem between the battery, start switch, and Ignition Coil input

[PREV91RH]

Holy smoke it runs!

Turned out to be a bad distributor, one of the pickup coils was blown open. The first clue should have been that the rotor did not turn exactly in the center of the cap, as the two bottom ignition points were worn right off and the top two showed no sign of wear at all.

There is a U-Pull It junk yard about twenty miles away and they had only one Previa, and not too much had been scavenged yet, and it looked like it was in real nice shape, too bad someone junked it. I grabbed all the ignition stuff, just because, and started replacing the easiest first.

The last thing I tried was the distributor itself and I really didn't want to do it because I did not fully understand the instructions, Top Dead Center, Timing Marks, etc. But then I said what the hey, it can't get any worse. I did not try to find TDC, but I just scribed a mark inside and set the replacement one at exactly the same place, put her in, and voila! It's alive...!

I'm sure the timing must be off because it was way too easy, and I should have it checked or get a timing light and try it myself, but she runs sweet just like it is. One of the spark plugs ceramic insulator was totally broken, and by the looks of the rusty line it had been for a long time. She idles a little rough but I'll put in new plugs and have a good feeling that it should be all right.

After getting use to the culture shock of where the engine is mounted and how you have to get at it wears off, the old girl is actually kind of fun to work on. I'll be dangerous now, I've got a book!


Oh by the way. Does anyone know what the difference would be between the 1991 and 1992 CEL would be, they are one number different. The 91, my car, the part number ends in 11 and the replacement car part was off a 1992 Previa and the last two numbers are 21. After I replaced the distributor and all the other goodies and got it running, I did plug in the replacement computer and it seemed to work ok, but as the original obviously was not bad I hooked it back up, and now have a spare computer.

167k, and I bet I get another hundred k out of it if I treat it right. It's kind of like driving my sun porch down the road.