1995 ford escort 1.9l engine died while running; will not start... (1 Viewer)

[NorCalDoug]

Okay, so I was driving home from work in the 1995 ford escort given to us by my wife's grandmother the other day and the engine started to sputter, then it died as I was cruisin' along in traffic. I was only going about 35 mph at the time, so I put it in Neutral and coasted to a stop about 50 yards down the street. It was running fine before this point.

I tried to start the engine, but it just turned over and wouldn't catch.
"Okay...let me check the fuses," I thought, hoping for a 1/2 banana fix, but the EFI fuse looked fine as did the other fuses (from what I could tell)...no dice on the easy fix.

I called AAA for the short tow to my house.

I haven't dug deeply into it yet, but plan on getting into it this upcoming weekend. I suspect it's a fuel delivery issue, but am wondering if anyone here might have any suggestions. This particular engine doesn't have a distributor (it's fully electronic). My plan is to replace the fuel pump and the fuel filter as my first run at a sorta poke-n-hope approach to this issue. I have a Haynes manual for the escort and they seem to suggest a fuel delivery issue may be the cause of this problem.

This ford escort has a fuel pump cutoff/disable switch in the rear cargo area. I checked it and it was fine. I flipped it and reset it again, but still no dice.

The only other mechanical problem I've had with this vehicle was that it started to overheat a couple years ago, but I pulled over and cut the engine in time to prevent any damage to the engine. It only has about 70k miles on it, so it's still relatively young mechanically...


Any thoughts and/or suggestions would be welcomed.

 

[Jace]

Did you ever get this figured out? Same thing just happened to a friend of mine (same car, same year).

 

[Jace]

Well I solved the issue, for me anyway. Timing belt slipped a bit.

 

[NorCalDoug]

Well I solved the issue, for me anyway. Timing belt slipped a bit.

Sorry for the late response. It was the timing belt. Mine had broken and needed to be replaced. Luckily for me this particular engine is not totally destroyed when the timing belt breaks. I had the timing belt replaced and all was good after that.

Let me know if your buddy wants or needs a chiltons or Hayes manual for it. I no longer have mine so I don't need the manual anymore. I have some spare relays and fuses that I can send as well.

Sent from my iPhone using IH8MUD

 

[haryv]

Shooting in the dark will not solve the no start issue. My suggestion is to call a qualified mobile mechanic with a high end scanner such as a snapon scanner or have it towed to a shop. There is a reason why mechanics spend thousands of dollars in diagnostic tools to solve no start issues and other car repairs.