Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Car wont start after UIM/LIM gasketswap 98 contour

Well I ended up getting my hands on a battery charger tonight and charged the battery 100% and still no start. I pulled the plugs and removed the UIM the plugs looked like they might have fired a few times...ever so slightly black, but definately not too dirty (makes sense because it hasn't started!).

I'm almost 100% sure that the CEL goes off when I try to start the engine, so if I read those links right, the CKP probably is NOT bad?

I noticed my plugs smelled like gas pretty badly, so I know the injectors are working. In fact, they looked like they were damp with gas. I'll try adding some oil to the cylinders and see if it works for me. What do you think?

http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=trouble&Number=1097666&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1

I'm still waiting for the battery to charge again, but I tried starting it after putting some oil down into the cylinders and it actually felt like there was some "resistance" to the start. Hopefully when I go out to try to start it again once the battery is done charging, I can get her to start. I did feel a difference in the start before and after adding oil though. It's been sitting for about a week now.

Got the car started this morning!!! I put the oil down in the cylinders (thank you for the guy that recommended that) last night and tried to start it, but the battery was still too low. Charged it overnight and it fired right up this morning.

Now my question is, I'm assuming it's normal for the car to smoke for a little while after starting it up since I poured oil down into the cylinder through the spark plug hole??? It was really heavy at first, but after idling for about 10 minutes it wasn't nearly as bad. I also spilled some oil on the block itself too, so I'm getting a little smoke from under the hood.

But let me tell you what...that car drives better now than it has over the past two years. It's obviously been needing plugs for a LONG time. It drives like a whole different car...more power, doesn't bog down under partial acceleration, etc. I'm interested to see if she (my fiancee) gets any better gas mileage now with it. Drives great, and no CEL! Hopefully it stops burning the oil soon and all will be good.

Thanks for everyone's help...couldn't have done it without it!

I'm perplaxed as to why a simple cleaning would show these symptoms. What is the purpose of dumping oil down the cylinders?

From what I've read, if the car starts up then gets turned off very quickly, or stalls out, it can flood the cylinder with gas, which leads to "cylinder wash". This means there isn't any oil around the cylinder rings, which can lead to no compression. I described a problem as the starter didn't seem to have any "load/resistance" to it, and for the life of me couldn't figure out how there would be no compression. Well, I'd never even heard of this happening before, but in my case...it definately did!

I've read about this on old VW's, never thought to connect it to a contour. Kinda wierd, but it makes sense, now that I think about it.
Scott

There was someone with a Mondeo on here once, he had the same problem after cleaning. Probably should change the oil after a bit, if it got thinned out with gas.