Tuesday - September 10, 2013

Grease Monkey

The old chuggaboom, my 1997 Saturn SC2, keeps giving me the Check Engine light. Crap. But not unexpected; I’ve got a quarter million miles on the thing so something is bound to go wrong sooner or later.

So I get out my little ODBC II code reading tool - a device as indispensable as a 10mm socket wrench these days - and it tells me I’ve got two codes, a P0340 and a P0341. Uh oh, this looks bad.

Next I look the codes up on the chart (they’re online too). And these are camshaft position sensor error codes. Just like what happened with my wife’s car last month.

Problem is, Saturns don’t have camshaft position sensors.

Huh???

 To the batcave!  To the internet!

Turns out that Saturn built this engine with a waste spark ignition. Instead of having an old school distributor and a coil to fire one spark plug at the right time, the engine has two coils and a crankshaft position sensor and fires two plugs at once. One cylinder gets a spark when it needs it, at the peak of the compression cycle, and the other cylinder gets a spark when it’s in the exhaust cycle and doesn’t need it, so that one is wasted. Four cylinder engines are built like double two cylinder engines, with two pistons up and two pistons down. So this is actually a pretty neat idea, and it saves money and complexity. It just gives the shade tree grease monkey a few minutes of confusion when things go a little wrong.

What’s the fix? Well, the first stage is to remove the coil packs, clean them up with some contact cleaner, and bolt them back in nice and tight. And go get some new spark plugs, gap them properly, and install them. Good grief, I think this car may still have the original spark plugs. Wow. 17 years old. Make sure the boots go on properly, clear the engine codes with the ODBC reader, and see if that does it. If not, then the next step is a new set of ignition wires. That’s more expensive, but still not really so bad. And that should do it; the coil packs apparently never ever go bad.

Phew. Glad I won’t have to do any freaky upside down automotive gymnastics to get at some impossible to reach sensors. Guess I’ll be running down to the auto parts store today. I probably need one of those gapper disks too, which used to cost 50¢. I’ve got several of them ... somewhere. In a toolbox, in a cardboard box, somewhere lost in the garage. Crivens, someday I’ll actually finish unpacking and be moved in here. At least I know where my 10mm and 13mm sockets are. along with my plug socket. Well, one set of them. I think I have 3 or 4. Somewhere.

update - Well now, that was easy. I got a set of plain old Autolight plugs, the basic copper core model. $1.49 each. Pulled the old NGK plugs - the DOHC hemi engine means I had to use the long extension - and they were fine. Rather worn looking, and their gaps were about 0.15”, several times too big. New plugs went right in, touch the dipstick to the threads, 1/3 turn past finger tight to tighten the gaskets. Clear the ODBC and the car starts right up. No lights. Drove to the gas station, put in $20 worth. No lights. Drove home. No lights. Sweet. Interestingly, before the engine was idling at 1100rpm and would sometimes stumble a bit when cold. Now its idling rock steady at 750rpm, and no stumble. Go chuggy buggy go!

Must remember to get new plugs for the wife’s Spec-V. Bet hers have 75,000 miles on them. It’s time. Get her the fancy platinum ones maybe.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/10/2013 at 11:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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