Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting [95 zetec] Starts great once, won't start again

This is the same old problem, I know by now I should have gotten it to a mechanic or something, but 1. I don't have the money (so I'm not going anywhere with it), 2. I want to know what's wrong first

Okay, Our 95 mystique will start once perfectly. Per day, I suppose. I turn the key, it fires up -- no questions, not even a moment's hesitation. Vroom! Idles at about 1000 and after a moment or two (warming the exhaust I suppose), it drops to normal and stays there. [About 800rpm?]..

I can shift into drive, drive across town, whatever, it'll work great, problem is when I turn the car off the same thing happens every time. Next time I turn it on, it's as good as dead.

I can crank it for an hour and run down the battery dead if I wish, it'll be as dead as a boulder, I know the fuel system's working fine (the engine's getting gas, you can smell it dare I say?), and the starter has to have worked or else nothing would have happened.

I suppose I can record the noise, but yeah, I just did this in the driveway -- fired up the car, let it sit a good 10 minutes purring happily, noted all the normal operations, and then shut it off. Gave it one very long cranking and then a shorter one, neither time it started, so

Without getting out my EEC IV diagnosis device (a piece of stripped coax to jump the test pins) and sitting there watching the morse code, or have another mechanic look at the car, check the odometer, and tell me what I already know (that the car has 137k on it and is probably as good as dead.. oh wait I know someone who might like to buy it!) -- what could that behavior be?

Would have edited but it's late to do that..

After reading another post about someone's starter not turning OFF but not starting the engine I'm beginning to wonder if the silly pro lock key could be screwing up the ignition and not letting the solenoid that actually fires up the car go.

That'd be odd, because when the key isn't present, the ignition doesn't crank at all -- no noise, but anything can be possible.

Is there a specific fuse I need to pull to do that? Not really up to unhooking the battery.

I think they are fuses 4 and 11... IIRC.

Okay, started it earlier, again started wonderfully, let it run 2 minutes, shut it off, and then cranked it -- no fire as usual.

So I popped the hood and tried pulling fuses 4 and 11 as suggested Waited a moment, popped 11 back in and swapped 4 (had one sitting in the box woohoo!), and tried again..

after about 3 cranks the car did something I hadn't heard in a while -- the crank starts going faster and then back to normal, at that point if I push the gas some the car will fire up.

Could that be a loose timing belt? Damn I need to pull that cover..