crank no start, sudden oil loss

[profquad]

Hey guys, I’m visiting Big Bend and suddenly lost power. I noticed the day before some oil had burnt off so I topped it off. I’ve been driving pretty heavily in hot conditions, so I check the oil and coolant often.
After the sudden loss of power, I checked the oil and it was mostly gone. I didn’t see any obvious leaks anywhere.
I poured the rest of the quart in, no leaks immediately visible.
It will crank like normal, no weird sound, just no start.
Currently I’m on some guys land way out in the boonies. Gonna get it towed to Alpine, which is the nearest auto parts 100 miles away.
If it’s valve seals or piston rings (according to fb this is the best idea i’ve heard) how do i replace them?
Any other thoughts what this could be?
It was not reading as overheating when it happened, there is plenty of gas and battery.

[Oldblueaccord]

Hey guys, I’m visiting Big Bend and suddenly lost power. I noticed the day before some oil had burnt off so I topped it off. I’ve been driving pretty heavily in hot conditions, so I check the oil and coolant often.
After the sudden loss of power, I checked the oil and it was mostly gone. I didn’t see any obvious leaks anywhere.
I poured the rest of the quart in, no leaks immediately visible.
It will crank like normal, no weird sound, just no start.
Currently I’m on some guys land way out in the boonies. Gonna get it towed to Alpine, which is the nearest auto parts 100 miles away.
If it’s valve seals or piston rings (according to fb this is the best idea i’ve heard) how do i replace them?
Any other thoughts what this could be?
It was not reading as overheating when it happened, there is plenty of gas and battery.

id pull a spark plug see what it looks like.

Oil consumption is a concern but your not going to fix that on the road.

Since you are traveling any chance you got bad gas?

[fortekosakku]

The 70A main fuse under the hood. If its even a little bit green from corrosion like mine likes to get within 6 months if its a cheap, old copper one, it will screw with starting.
The main relay next to the clutch pedal under the dash, tucked up under there, likes to go out. I resoldered mine but its also got parts in there that go out that cant be fixed.Replacing it now.

If you bought a car used from a moron that has been running new ethanol cheap gas in it, then its probably got rust inside the tank. I had to replace my pump and filter and injectors. Also if the person never kept the tank full, its got rust in the fuel system. Luckily, its really easy to pull the injector rail. Reverse blow out the injector basket filters.

Under the steering column, the ignition switch for mine was made in a way to replaced in a short 1 foot section. So replacing the ignition switch mechanism is a good idea.

I replaced my distributor for the heck of it but it also can short out. The freakin thermo sensor starts goin bad and it over floods you in the cold.

These are all the things that might be messin with you that most people dont tell you about. I did a bunch of things on mine, before I replaced the 70A fuse and fixed 90% of it all. Fuse wasnt blown. It just was corroded in places you cant see. Good enough for hot days but cold starts it couldnt overcome the resistance.

Now, for the oil loss and things. You dont lose that much oil that quick and not have a leak or have it burning through the engine and out tail pipe for all to see. Use your nose. Open the oil filler and have a sniff when its not too hot but not too cold. Same with the dipstick. Oil , when its overheated will smell foul, like, rotten almost with a lot of metallic overtones to it. Make sure the coolant isnt cooling the engine enough that the temp stays good but the oil pump fails and keeps the internals hot. If its not something serious then maybe you replaced the oil filter and didnt fill it up a little with oil or its leaking from a camshaft seal into the timing gear cover. Thats pretty common.

I doubt its valve seals or piston rings. Both of these things will have smoke coming out the cars tail pipe. Both of these things cause loss of compression in a way that probably would create some odd spits and sputters and smells and things as it trys to crank. You say nothing weird. So its probably electrical or fuel related. The fuel pump is easy to replace but also easy to just pull out and see if rust has clogged the pump screen and the inlet. Also, dont use anything but a regular 10W 30 or 10W 40 oil that is NON SYNTHETIC. Never use synthetic oil in a car that never came out of the factory with it. Not only is it pointless because of the fact that raw metal has micro holes that are bonded with the very first oil that touches it, but it will find every sub atomic crack in your seals and slip by it. Dont go too thick because it strains the oil pump. Dont go too thin because it doesnt give enough time for transfer of heat to the oil for cooling. Same thing for regulating your cooling system. No crazy water pumps, no crazy thermostats. Speed and pressure of the flow of coolant is important so keep all that stock. THe computer is also under one of the seats. Make sure that connection didnt get kicked or pulled loose. Amazo and Ebay both have some stock replacement parts that can be shipped to you. I have an entire master rebuild kit and what I couldnt find on amazon, I could find on Ebay and they let you buy it now as a guest on Ebay so its basically as easy and fast as Amazon so no seller account or major banking account is require like it was before. Hope this helps.

[profquad]

Thanks for the responses! Got back to my car after a couple days, checked the spark plugs. Looked maybe a bit hot, but still dark colored on the electrode. No oil or burn marks.
There was a good amount of oil sprayed back along the undercarriage, so I traced the leak to the crank seal. This I attribute to high rpms in high heat. Topped it off and drove a good 80 miles at night with no further oil loss.
I do hear mixed things about synthetic. The last oil change they gave me 5w-20 as per the book, I topped off with 5w-30 SAE just now.
Will add some lucas of off brand stop leak stuff then drive on to Tucson, stopping and checking frequently. Going to stick to evening drives for a while.
I already have a water pump up in Nevada, gonna try to wait to replace the crank seal so i can do the pump at the same time, unless it starts draining again.

[ShiRen]

You can run whatever oil you want as long as it is in the general range of viscosity, promise it wont matter, this engine is not picky, but you might want to stick to the same kind

[Oldblueaccord]

Thanks for the responses! Got back to my car after a couple days, checked the spark plugs. Looked maybe a bit hot, but still dark colored on the electrode. No oil or burn marks.
There was a good amount of oil sprayed back along the undercarriage, so I traced the leak to the crank seal. This I attribute to high rpms in high heat. Topped it off and drove a good 80 miles at night with no further oil loss.
I do hear mixed things about synthetic. The last oil change they gave me 5w-20 as per the book, I topped off with 5w-30 SAE just now.
Will add some lucas of off brand stop leak stuff then drive on to Tucson, stopping and checking frequently. Going to stick to evening drives for a while.
I already have a water pump up in Nevada, gonna try to wait to replace the crank seal so i can do the pump at the same time, unless it starts draining again.

What do you think was the deal with the no start?

Plugs should look good white porcelain clean and the strap should be light white to tan appearing. Only black(soot) should be the flat base of the plug and may be some oil on threads.

Plenty of pics on the ole google search.

[profquad]

I feel like the oil pressure dropped and the ECU noticed and turned her off. Whatever it was, I’m glad it works now. Downloaded a plug chart before heading back to the wilderness, it didn’t match any problems.
Anyone have reservations about stop leak products? got the Lucas one, but I’m worried about it gumming up the engine. Obviously people use these, but people do a lot of things...

[ShiRen]

Stop leak products? Yeah thats not going to fix your car. Only solution is to replace seals.