hey... long time no post heh. Anyway - got a pretty major problem with my EL, driving along without a problem - suddenly...turn a corner, accelerate, then bam...dead, no power, but in a pretty nasty way.

Engine died, backfiring, crackling, popping, generally sounding like the timing is somehow completely out! So the thing cranks, but seems to almost seize randomly (ie, rrrr (cranking), suddenly rrr...(stopped dead), occasionally stumbles (almost fires) but wont run, and occasionally pops through the exhaust.

has spark (dizzy rotor spins etc), reasonably sure it has fuel (fuel pump starts etc, plugs have fuel)... just... wont go, and doesnt crank smoothly.

any ideas what could have happened? it has been trailered to a mechanic (random one, as I generally DIY everything... but have a f**k back at the moment and cant do s**t bent over... ffs). RACV guy thought it could have been a skipped timing chain... can this even (or does it EVER?) happen on the I6?

Could it have somehow stripped/slipped/sheared the cog on the dizzy shaft?

far out... bloody car. Anyway... any help / thoughts much appreciated...

both of them things are possible,i know the aux shaft which drives the dizzy can be F**k because i have a useless engine out the back in the shed which has a stuffed one

hey man what i suggest you do is drop the sump look for shavings/ clumps of metal/plastic. whyll your there doing that check the timing chain isnt slack

then mark the dizzy and block for easy alignment then undo retaining bolt and take the dizzy off for inspection. look at the cog / shaft to make sure it still has all its teeth and that there not damaged

check dizy cap & leads & spark plugs, coil for corrosion / erosion

check fuzzes and also check the ECU for water damage

if all else fail take your sensors off clean and inspect them - probably a good thing to do anyway

other then that i am stumped

mind you disconnect battery first b4 doing anything =)

To drop the sump properly is an engine out job.

A few things you could look at

1) Try a new coil

2) Check TDC and see where your rotor button sits.

3) Pull your dizzy and check the drive gear

yep can pull the dizzy and see the metal shavings sitting in there, thats what i experienced with the engine i have out back, could stick your finger down the hole and get the shavings out and look down with a torch

unlucky your gonna have to take your engine out to fix that

what you gonna do

if you find that its stuffed just throw the motor and drop another one in its place,
i was going to chase another aux shaft for this motor but you cant buy them new so its easier to just throw the motor and drop another straight in

hmm thanks for the replies people. so mechanic finally called me today, doesnt know what the go is yet but thinks its something to do with the dizzy or timing (yeah great, couldnt have figured that one out heh).

so I happened to have a spare dizzy at home, dropped that off there...I had a bunch of problems with the car running really roughly and replaced a bunch of stuff hoping to fix it, dizzy was included on that list... the problem ended up being a major intake manifold gasket leak. So... its possible all this mess was caused by buying a s**t cheap dizzy from ebay... i guess the absolute best case scenario is the pin that holds the gear to the dizzy shaft has sheared. Wont know till tomorrow sometime when he gets around to pulling it out...

I am guessing that anything more serious (stripped teeth etc) would be a motor out/swap scenario... what would be a reasonably price to pay for someone to swap a falcon motor?

so if anyone was interested... ended up being a stripped gear on the aux shaft that drives the dizzy. pretty bloody annoying, according to the mechanic "all cheap chinese dizzys strip the drive gear" (I had recently swapped the dizzy over with an ebay item). cost a fair bit to fix but the car is running again