1994 Hard start and dies on accel

Hi all,

Hopefully the collective can help here.

I have a 1994 Plymouth voyager which has been running okay. I put
brakes on it yesterday and after letting it down off of the jack, I
notice extremely hard starting. Cranks but no fire. Actually it cranks
and after i release the key it would sputter a bit and die. Eventually
it starts and runs but it chokes and dies if I give it too much gas.
After driving it around the block a few times it eventually dies and is
very hard to restart. Once started, any amount of throttle kills it.

I managed to limp it to the Goodyear service center and had them look
at it this morning. They just called and told me to take it to the
dealer because they can't figure out what's wrong with it.

I can hear the fuel pump running but it's pretty loud. Goodyear says
that Fuel pressure is okay but this surely sounds like a fuel
starvation problem to me.

The specific symptoms are : Very hard to start (but cranks strong so
the battery is okay). Once started, almost any amount of throttle will
kill the engine. Note that at first it was just large applications of
throttle that cause problems but as the minutes went by it got worse
and worse until any application of throttle was enough to kill it. It
will idle, but barely. It also smokes but it's grey smoke and the car
does burn oil.

Thanks in advance. I really don't want to spend the money to have the
dealer look at this old thing.

 

What engine does your Voyager have? Could be any number of things
depending on the engine. Have you tried to see if there are any fault
codes stored?

-KM

 

It's the 3.0L V-6. No codes according to the Goodyear place.

 

--

Sounds like a fuel pressure problem, have you check that yet? When it cuts
off try spraying some throttle body cleaner in the throttle body to see if
it kicks over.
so I take it the van is at Goodyear now and they cant tell you what is
wrong?

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

Yep..sitting at goodyear. I asked specifically about fuel pressure and
they said it was "good", whatever that means.

This is my girlfriends car and I know the fuel filter probably hasn't
been changed in 30k miles. Just seems so coincidental that it's been
running fine and then after the brakes...

I wonder if jacking it up sloshed something loose in the fuel filter
that is now causing issues....or maybe the fuel pump has just given it
up. It's been pretty noisey for a while.

 

Is there a fuel pressure tap on the rail somewhere or do I have to put
the gauge inline. If I can get it home from the goodyear today I'll
check the FP myself. What is the spec on it?

 

--
h

well obviously if the van is running and not acting up a fuel pressure test
will show up good. when you get the van back and it acts up again you can
beat on the bottom of the tank to see if it restarts or carry some throttle
body cleaner and spray it in the throttle body to see if that makes it
start. If either starts it....replace the pump......My bet is it is the pump
especially since you say it was noisy.
Only the 3.3/3.8 has a port to check fuel pressure......you never specified

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tec

 

Thanks Glen. I'll give that a shot. It's a 3.0L so I guess no FP test
port. It'll pretty much start and idle eventually but giving it gas
will kill it everytime. I died right in the middle of a busy
intersection on the way to the goodyear. I'm not interested in going
through that again.

I think I'm just going to write the thing off and buy her a new PT
cruiser. How does a Chrysler Tech feel about those?

(I was a Ford tech in a previous life and definitely had opinions about
what Fords I would never own)

 

--

what did Goodyear say??

 

they said..."take it to the Chrysler dealer". :-| I'm not real
excited about the idea of paying $100 to have it towed to a dealer. I
think I'm just going to the dealer and buy a new car.

Anybody wanna buy a high mileage oil burning voyager? The AC works
great!

 

--

How much did you pay Goodyear to tell you they couldn't find the problem?

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

Well, I have to say, I was ready to go in there and have a fight on my
hands over the "check out" charge. Obviously to pay for a diagnosis,
one should actually receive, you know, a DIAGNOSIS. It's one thing for
them to tell me what's wrong and then have me decline to fix it. It's
something else entirely for them to fiddle with it all morning and come
back with "take it to the dealer". Anyway, I walked in, they handed me
the key and that was it. $0. They didn't even do the other work I had
authorized when I dropped it off (maintenance stuff) which was fine by
me.

Anyway, I bought a new stripper Town & Country last night so now I just
need to get this one running well enough to sell it. We went and picked
it up from Goodyear late last night after we left the car dealer and it
drove home fine. Idle was a little lopey but other than that it seemed
okay. I didn't get any of the on throttle stalling that it was doing
before. It really sounds like the fuel pump is getting hot and going
south and then getting back up to some normal pressue when it's cold
and hasn't been running all day. We had hundreds of Taurus/Sables with
the exact symptom when I was doing to tech work.

 

That's good to hear that they did not charge you. I once took my Dodge
Spirit to the local Chrysler/Plymouth dealer to find an oil leak. After
paying $59, they indicated that they could not determine where the leak
was coming from.

I then took it to an independent shop. The service writer quickly
determined that it was leaking from the front camshaft seal. Needless
to say, I let them do the repair.

-KM

 

Ya know, my old 94 Acclaim had the 3.0 V6 in it. Nothing but a pain in
the ass.

It could be fuel starvation, but it could also be excessive fuel (eg
flooding). And the thing that helps control this is...

I had a problem similar to yours at one time. What I did to get over
that hump was remove, stripdown, and throughly clean the throttle
body.

When I took mine off, it was full of BLACK GOO! I had to remove all
the little sensors & stuff. On the side there was this conical brass
thing with a spring under it. It could not even move because it was so
thick with black goop!

A can of Throttle Body cleaner (NOT "carb" cleaner), an old tooth
brush, some newspaper, and a lazy afternoon in the sun was all it took
to clean this puppy up good as new.

After re-assembly, the engine ran MUCH better.

Now this engine usually has other issues, but stick to the simple
stuff first. At least take the throttle body off and have a look.
Nothing to loose at this point.

hth

 

A bad MAP sensor can cause this also. Unplug it and see if it idles better.