Well, the 1989 Grand Caravanseems to have an intermittant no spark problem because it wouldn't start for 3 days last week and then suddenly decided to work.

Its5 dayslater and its been working fine all week but now, no spark again. The weather was cold and very humid last week when this first happened and its that way again.

The check engine light is not on. The distributor is clean and dry from the look of it. No condensation on the inside or outside that I can see. I took the cover off the pickup and that all looked fine.I installed a new cap and rotor. No joy. Put the coil wire near a ground and cranked the engine, nothing. So, it cranks just fine, has gas in the tank, droveit 120 milesyesterday with no trouble or any indication there was anything wrong, go out this morning and no spark.

Last week, I pulled all the wiringplugs that looked like they had anything to do with the spark or gas delivery, looked them over (all seemed good) and reinstalled them. It didn't help then.

I am guessing the weather has something to do with it. Must be condensation getting into something and shorting it to ground. I would further guess its some sort of signal to the computer thats not getting through.

Any suggestions? Ideas about what to check?

Any help will be appreciated.

 

Any ideas?

 

Sounds like a short somewhere, much like the one I can't find that causes my "door ajar" alarm to flash repeatedly when I'm driving in the rain. Good luck with that.

 

Have you scanned it yet? You don't have to have a check engine light on to have codes set. Esp. if you have "pending codes" and not a hard code - a CE light really only indicates US emissions exceeded by 150% or so...

I would guess you have some type of hall effect sensor that is not reading the pickup on the cam properly. If your just looking to toss parts - start with a camshaft/crank sensor on it. If the PCM does not see the crank signal - it will not allow the coil to fire.

Eric

 

Hall effect is what came to my mind. I had a rivet that held the hall ring(or whatever you call it) start to loosen on my 88. It started out very intermittent as it was basically shorting out touching the side of the distributor housing, It might help to know which motor we might be dealing with in 89. 2.2 2.5 3.0? don't think 2.6 was still available then. The other thought is like greaseangel and a couple of others have said is a bad wire , and I would look at the relay or smaller wires coming off the starter.

 

The engine is a 3.0. Sorry I forgot to include that bit of info.

All the lights work, the starter cranks the engine over just fine, I hear the fuel pump run, just no spark at all.

I had this trouble last week. It was very humid, drizzly then and its been that way for a couple days now. It has to be related to the weather. Its raining now and has been all day so I won't be doing any diagnostics fora while.

Last week, after the temp dropped below freezing and the air dried out a bit, it started and ran fine til the humidity and drizzle started again.

I just don't know these systems well enough to know what to check. I had a code 12 and a code 17 last week. I didn't check this time before removing the battery to charge it back up. I now see a code 12 but nothing else.

I've been thinking its probably a sensor that is not getting its signal to the computer. I'll look the engine over and see if I can find something coming from the one of the cams.

I appreciate the help guys. I've been laid-off and just can't afford to send it to a shop. Gotta try to fix this myself. Old Jeeps and Mustangs I know pretty well, but this newer stuff is a learning experience.

 

Ok, weather today is sunny and dry, still cold though. The GC started. It sputtered a few times and then caught. Idled just fine,I drove it a 1 mile loop around the neighborhood, no problems at all. Only code I found after the short drive was a 12. Can anyone tell me what that means?

I'm going to take the van to a friend's place in the next day or so, where we have a shop for working on our old cars.
I'm going to spray things down one at a time to see if I can figure out what is giving me the trouble.

 

I have an 89 voyageur, 2.5 non turbo.
Same problem. Was running fine, never had a starting problem outside of the starter relay which I replaced last year.
Got home okay, went to start yesterday - no go. Engine turns fine, fuel feeding, won't start.
Have been checking connections etc. and found nada so far.

Re the code 12 - http://www.allpar.com/fix/80s-codes.html(12 Battery or computer recently disconnected)
Prior to disconnecting the battery I had code 12 and code 25 (25 Automatic Idle Speed (AIS) motor driver circuit shorted or target idle not reached, vacuum leak found )
Trying to get a reader to see what it shows.

 

I guess if I'm going to have these computer controlled vehicles I should invest in some proper tools and reference sources.

Time to update the tools and knowledge. I hate change......

 

Check all of the fuse's and relays under the hood. Pull, clean ect.