My Wife lives in another City in my other House. She called and said the Car would not move. That was in the morning and I told here I could not come out till the next day.
I called here later and questioned her more closely and found she said there was a clicking when she turned the Key but it was not cranking (not in those words).

I went there the next day expecting a Battery or Electrical issue. Put the Battery on the Charger and later the Engine cranked fine but no start. I had a previous issue on my other vehicle where I had bought some Fuses from the 99 Cent store as I had been doing for years but the quality of the plastic was poor on them and some of bodies of the fuses melted breaking the circuit; specially on the ignition circuit.

So I pulled all of the fuses and checked them. That turned out to be the wrong thing to do because pulling out the ECM/Computer Fuse clears any stored codes.

However, I did find 2 fuses that looked as if they had only a bit on been overheated. I have a bag at home with better quality fuses but did not have it with me so replacing them was going to have to wait.

You could hear the Fuel Pump running but I had my Wife crank the Engine while I sprayed in a bit of Starting Fluid. If it attempts to start like that you know your are not getting fuel in the normal manner. If is does nothing like that you know you are not getting Ignition.

My Manuals were also at home so with the need for the Fuses and the Manuals I came back the next day with those and my Electrical Stuff bag, meter and timing light.

I needed to locate which fuses went to the Ignition but that was not clearly labeled but following the wiring digamma it it was either the ECM or the Gauge Circuit. So I replaced those fuses but it did no good. I replaced all of the fuses anyway but it did no good.

I spent a bit of tie with the wiring diagram locating which was the power wire that went to the Coil. I had trouble getting the Meter to make good contact on the thin prongs but eventually found the Coil was getting the proper voltage.

Note I had previously relocated the coil from where it is unseen between the Engine and the Fire Wall and under the Manifolds (engine mounted transversely). So this time it was easy to remove the Coil.

There was a poor surprise waiting for me. The Chilton Manual showed 3 different Coils. Listed as Coil 1,2,or 3. 2 of the Coils looked the same to me. However, the positions you hooked the meter up to test were not the same and the holes were too tiny to get the meter probes in.
Also the pictures were line drawings. I have seen other manuals where the line drawings missed some detail. Anyway I got no help there.

I vaguely remembered that my Van (what I drove there with) may have the same coil. So I spent some time on the internet checking part numbers and sure enough the Van and the Cavalier have the same Coil.

Removing the Van "dog house" was added work. While I was doing that I figured out that there was enough room for me to connect the Cavalier Coil and use a Jumper Cable to ground the Coil. I did that and the Caviler Coil ran my Van fine. So the Coil was good but now what?

Electrically that left the Ignition Module and the Hall Effect device. Neither of which I have any means or knowledge of how to trouble shoot.

i did remove the distributor cap to see if there was anything that could be observed causing an issue but there was not.

I was really tired after all of that and retreated back to my own house in the other city.

After I got back and fed and all nice and relaxed I realized I should have crank the Engine to see if the Distributor was actually rotating.

I got on eBay and priced Ignition Modals. The were around $30. I am also thinking my Hull Effect device is extremely rusty so which is it and do I want to buy both?

At that point I remembered I had seen to me inexpensive rebuilt distributors on eBay and they come with the Hull Effect device and an new module and also if it turned out it was some other issue with the distributor replacing it could do the job.

EBay had a distributor for $44.99 and free shipping. That was the cheapest way to get all of the parts that might be causing the issue and I ordered it.

While I was waiting on it to arrive I was thinking the only thing left would be some issue with the Timing Chain.

The Distributor arrived early. I took it to the other House. I cranked the engine to see if the old distributor was working and it was.

I had some minor issues getting the old one out due to lack of room but I got the new one in and the Engine started and ran fine.

By that time I was again too tired and went home. I will return in 2 days and get out the timing light and I need to come up with some new 15 amp fuses as for testing I had to use a 20 amp one.

Fortunately where my Wife works is about one mile away. However, she complained about here knee hurting during the Walk. So, it was good the Distributor arrived 3 days early.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

I now have realized I am going to have to provide my Wife with a list of symptoms so that she can describe typical car trouble issues accurately. That way I am more likely to arrive with what I need to fix the issue.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

I should have done it the day I replaced the Distributor but I adjusted the timing to day which was off. I had my Wife bring it to my City where I had all of my Tools and chemicals and so on.
The timing pointer is rally hard to see on this one and it took a lot of spray to clean it and the marks on the pulley were likewise hard to see even in the flash of the timing light.

I also installed the proper amperage of fuse. Hopefully that takes care of things till I get the Mercedes going.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

My Wife got about a week and 1/2 use out of the car and she said is would not go fast.

I checked the timing again and searched for disconnected vacuum hoses and found nothing.

I drove it around and it drove normal till you got above 30 mph then bogged down. I could not tell if it was a transmission slipping issue or a plugged fuel filter.

The fuel filter change was the easiest to do. However, locally they wanted $16 for a fuel filter. Ordered on on eBay for total cost of $8 but my Wife had to wait and walk to work till it came.

During that time I advised here that the new fuel filter my not fixe the issue.

The fuel filter arrived 2 days early but I did not get to replace it till today.

I could not remember were the filter was located on the car. When I found it I realized I likely had not changed that filter for a really long time.

During the filter change the old filter fell to the ground and what came out was not clear like gasoline. After I got the new filter on I dumped out the old one and sure enough there was a lot of oddly black stuff in it.

The new filter seems to have cured the issue. Since the black stuff could have been rust or some other issue I am thinking in a few months the filter may need to be replaced again. But, will wait and see.

Hopefully before that time the Mercedes will be fixed.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

It sounds to me like you did well .

The rust on the Hall Effect Generator was the most likely culprit IMO, I have saved a few of them by gently and carefully wire brushing the rust off .

The Hall Effect Sensor is fairly easy to test, use your multimeter set to milli volts and disable the power to the ignition circuit ~ crank the engine and you should see some meter action ~ this is why I still use analog multi meters : they'll wiggle the needle when a digital meter may not show anything .

FWIW, fuel and air filters should always be changed every 12 months or 10,000 miles, I've had the exact same problems you did too many times over the years ~ no one ever changes the damned fuel filters .

Might be time to do a HOT OIL & FILTER CHANGE too...

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I don't change filters per X amount of time. The Freeway is about 1/4 mile a way and goes to a busy Port. Lots of Truck Traffic. Lots of particulates in the Air. So when I am under the hood checking fluid levels I peak at that the air filter. I just sort of go by how loaded the filter looks.

Fuel Filters I generally don't change till I have performance issues. I would have nailed the filter issue faster if it had not been I had that previous modal/hall effect device issue and my Batter was charging ant 16.58 volts (figured it was the batter but did not know if it was not the alternator till the new battery was installed).

Since the new distributor was bought from eBay I kind of suspected there was again an issue with the distributor because it is possible someone was selling a known defective part.

And on top of all of the above the Transmission has some issues and I also suspected the trans was slipping at higher rpms.

So the fuel filter ended being one of the possible and the easiest one to check. Also I did not see any easy way to connect a fuel pressure gauge. My Van has a specific place for that but not the 86 Cavalier.

Deciding on an oil change is by looking at the color and smell of the oil.

I might take one 90 mile trip a year. Most of the time the vehicles are at max 10 mile trips and mostly less.

This is the first fuel injected gasoline Car that I have ever had the fuel filter plug up on.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

If it works when cold it's the modulator. I carried free mist in thoose days to super cool them to work

__________________
1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran

I will try that but I will likely use brake cleaner to do the cooling because that i what I have. But, hopefully I won't have to deal with it again.

The Last time I troubleshooted a no spark issue all of the vehicles I had still had points and a condenser. So I was more then a little out of practice.

Also the Coils back then were more generic and easier to check with an Ohm Meter.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

An old thread but this might help someone.

About 25 years ago I was helping someone troubleshooting one of these engines. I think it was a Buick X car with a four cylinder. I do remember the engine was transverse.

It was, finally, the Hall effect thing. But then it was intermittent. It turned out to be a bad oil pressure sensor. The theory being that as you cranked the engine to start the oil pressure would come up. Then the sensor acted as a switch to send power to the electirc fuel pump. Then the fuel pressure came up and the car started and ran.

Hence, no oil pressure, no power to fuel pump, no start and no damage to the engine by running it without oil.

Oh, for the good 'ol days. Hey, wait.... Twenty-five years ago was the good 'ol days!

Thanx for the reminder ! .

My 2001 Ford Ranger 2.5L trucklet has a weepy oil pressure gauge sender, I should get off my duff and replace it before it fails and strands me .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

This Car continues to be a PTA. On July 4 just before arriving at my destination glanced down at the Temp Gauge and found too hot. When I was moving it got down to near normal so I continued for the other 2 miles to my destination.

There is no mechanical fan and the Electric Cooling Fan was not working normally. I did find if I hot wired the fan it worked. So after the cool down and replacement of coolant I was able to drive home with no incident.

Since the Fan worked hot wired I was thinking it could be the fan controller (aftermarket), temp sensor or the Relay. Scrounged through my parts and found another relay and that fixed it.

I gave the Car back to my Wife. 6 days later we were celebrating out I drove the car and found that one of the rear brakes/wheels locked up.
I gave my Wife my Van to use which I had also been having bad luck on. The Drivers Side Door Handle broke and I was waiting on the new one to arrive. Anyway she got the van.

I had the wheel skidding issue previously but on the opposite side and several years go. Replacing the 2 proportioning valves fixed that.
However this time it seemed different.

I found that the tire on that side had the tread separating from it. But, that did not fix itself. (I have a manual tire thing to dismount and mount tires. It takes some strength to do that but it worked OK till it pulled out the concrete mounts. The mounts don't want to stay in the concrete any more so changing the tire without the Manual Tire Disimounter was a whole lot harder. I need to get that mounted again.)

I pulled the Brake Drum off to see if I could find anything the Drum was kind of roughly worn. It is one of the Drums I had bought on eBay and it seemed like they were made of mild steel instead of cast iron. I got rid of one of them with the previous skidding issue years before I re-adjusted the Brakes and that helped some.

(While this is going on the passenger side door handle on the Van also broke leaving no door working door handles and the new one not having arrived yet. My Wife who is fortunately a small person had to crawl in from the back door of the van to use the vehicle. One door handle arrived and I fixed that but I am awaiting the other one.)

I hate trouble shooting by replacing parts. Bit. I ordered a new Drum and a new set of Brake Shoes.

Replacing the Drum and shoes appears to have cured the issue but I was still in 2 days of sort of testing it when I decided to change my Oil. This is a transverse engine and the Axle comes out near the Oil Filter.
Well I found the Axle Boot near the Engine cracked all the way around and the grease flung out.

I have some Dorman universal boots left over so I will replace the boot with that. Also the Axle Seal on that side had been leaking so that also gets replaced. I am waiting for the seal to come tomorrow before starting.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

The no spark problem happened again several days ago.

I went through all of the procedures I did last July and all that was left was the Distributor and the Ignition Module. This time I had a new Ignition Module and I installed that and the car runs fine now.

What killed the Ignition Module on the new distributor assembly I had gotten from eBay? Whoever installed the Module did not use any thermo conducting paste/grease between the module and the distributor frame. It is likely the module overheated and died for lack of the conducting paste/grease.

The other possible is it simply was a poor-quality module.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

When I ran the car in the drive way it sounded as if it had an exhaust leak. I was puzzled by this. When I got home to my other house I began to think that maybe being towed dis something to the exhaust but have not been back to check on that.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

About a week and 1/2 ago, I decided to drive the Cavalier back to my other house. I got half the way there and it died on me after about 45 minutes of driving.

As it turned out the cheap module I used died.

I ordered 2 other modules one cheap and one better quality US made one. I read on the internet a coil can cause the module failure and got another one of those.

Put on the new cheap module and it started right up. Changed the Coil anyway.

So, it is running, and I have not test driven it because I need to replace the rubber sway bar bushings and I can't seem to coordinate my time to match a day when it is not raining here.

I had also removed the stock module from the stock distributor that came with the car and there was zero semiconducting paste between it and the distributor. It is not supposed to last without the paste, but it came from the factory like that.

On the first cheap module I installed I did use the thermo conducting paste and I used the packet of paste that came with the 2nd cheap module that is on now.

What is curious is about 8 months ago I changed the Module on my Van, and I had no thermo-conducting paste and I used anti-seize compound and so far, it has been fine (I have a replacement module just in case). What is interesting is that the Distributor on the van is in the rear and the Van's engine cover is very close to the engine. My guess would be that the module us subjected to more heat in the van compared to the Cavalier.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

I use polyurethane suspension bushings instead of the rubber ones whenever I can, they last longer and have no down side plus they're remarkably cheaper to buy .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better