Hey, all. Hope you had a great turkey day.....

I am putting th elky up for the winter. So as I start her up, something doesn't sound right. Almost as though there was something blocking the exhaust path, kind of a muffled sound. I suppose it could be a mouse in the pipe. Anyway, I notice the CEL is on. So I shut her down, plug in the reader, start her up and get nothing but a bunch of dashed lines. The book tells me that there is no signal being delivered to the machine. Makes sense. I tried several different times, but nothing changed.

I'm sure the lack of a signal to many of the ECM controlled functions could make the engine run odd, possibly leading to the way the engine sounded. If the ECM is bad, I am thinking that it may be time to start the front end overhaul project.

Is there a fuse for the ECM? I just though of that while I was typing this. (I am at work and can't check). Could it be that simple?

Duane

Check the fuse for sure. If it's good grap a paperclip and follow these diections for code checking, maybe your scanner is acting up and not showing you a problem:

http://www.elcaminocentral.com/article-55-thread-1-1.html

I agree with Robert. I believe there are two fuses. I had the same problem after I replaced the valve stem seals, and reconnected the many items on top of the engine. The battery was connected and I believe I caused a short. Found a blown ECM fuse and now my analyzer and the ECM are happy with each other.

Doug

Well, I checked both fuses and they were good. So I started it up again last night. No CEL, and it sounded fine! Hooked up the scanner, and there were no codes. Funny, because something should have been stored after the last round, and I have not dis-connected the battery.

Well, very shortly after, the engine started acting up and the CEL lit up again. I briefly saw a code 35 before the ---- showed up on the scanner again. I hate chaseing electrical gremlins....

Duane

Code 35 (http://elcaminocentral.com/articles/8735.pdf)

Thank you very much. I will try this (hopefully) sometime this week. What document did that page come from?

Duane

That is located on site All Data. It is a subcription service. Most shop owners use the service, it's allot cheaper than buying and updating shop manuals such as Chilton or Mitchell.
They have differant levels of service from 1 veh. to unlimited.
Some say:::::::::::Can't run a shop without it.
(but hay~~ what do I know)


http://www.alldata.com/

Thanks for the info. I will definetely check it out.

So I start up the elky last night to start troubleshooting, but as luck would have it, I didn't have any problems with it. No codes, no funny sounds, everything worked like it should. Still have the same problem with high dwell when it goes into closed loop, but that is where I left off before this latest round of gremlins.

I like finding and fixing problems, but chasing them is a different story.

Duane