Questions and Answers
Tercel No Spark
Q. I have a 1990 Toyota Tercel. It has about 100,000 miles, 1500cc engine, is carbureted and has a manual transmission.
The battery is charge and when you turn the key to start it, it just "turns over" but produces no spark to the spark plugs. I've tested this two ways, first by taking a spark plug and holding the threads to the block while the engine is turned over, and no visible spark was seen. Then I used a timing light, clipped onto the number one spark plug wire and this also showed that there was no spark.
I have changed the distributer cap, rotor and plug wires with a new set.
I also have checked the air gap at the pick-up coil and it measures around .008. The ohms reading across both the primary and secondary winding of the coil are within specs. Also, the ohms reading across the pick-up coil are within specs. (I got the specifications from a Haynes manual I bought at the auto parts store).
This manual said that if all these reading check good, then your igniter (located on the fire wall) "MAY" be bad. I have changed this with a new one ($149.00), and I still have no spark to the spark plugs.
Do you know of anything else I can check for??? Please help!!!
Thanks
ThomA. Well Thom, it seems you checked everything except the coil itself. What you can do to check this is to put a test light on the + terminal of the coil and turn the key on. if the light lights, then you have power to the coil. Then put it on the - side of the coil and crank the engine, the light should blink. if it does, you have a bad coil. The blinking is caused by the pick up in the distributor so if the light blinks, the pick up is good.
It's not uncommon for a coil to go bad, like anything else they can break or wear out.
Additional Information provided courtesy of AllDATA
