80 Wont start. Need suggestions

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Joined
Aug 9, 2005
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8,873
Location
Cedar Rapids, IA
My '92 80 won't start. It fired right up this morning and I drove about 20 miles. I then noticed it was idling low (around 600) and the lights were dimming. I put a new alternator, h2o pump, belts, hoses, thermostat and t-stat sensors a week ago and haven't had any problems with it since. I am cranking fine and thought maybe it was a battery issue but put a jump box on it and nothing. Going out to see if I am getting spark (BTW, new rotor and distributor cap about a month ago. Any suggestions? Of course it's started snowing after I stopped. Thanks.

Jeff
 
sorry to hear but hey - the colts are in the super bowl! goooooo peyton!
 
NoT funny. Really. Being stranded with your only vehicle after spending every penny you have to replace all of the afforementioned parts plus battling terminal cancer is not a fun place to be. But thanks for your concern and wasting my time. You are the exception to all of the fine, generous and caring Land Cruiser owners. Go buy a Jeep, nube! :flipoff2:
 
the dim lights is the confusing part, to me
double check your grounds, especially the one from the motor to the battery and./or frame-battery

bad grounds can make for some funky behavior

you may as well double check fuel delivery as well- maybe all the work that you did crimped a hose or something? or maybe a hose is loose letting air into the fuel system?

let us know if you have spark
 
No spark at the plug wire or distributor cap (when I pull the center plug off the dist cap). Bad coil pack?
 
the dim lights is the confusing part, to me
double check your grounds, especially the one from the motor to the battery and./or frame-battery

bad grounds can make for some funky behavior

you may as well double check fuel delivery as well- maybe all the work that you did crimped a hose or something? or maybe a hose is loose letting air into the fuel system?

let us know if you have spark
Quick way to check your ground is to clamp jumper cable to battery (ground side) and engine itself (like the hook for lifting engine out of the truck)
If that does not yield anything you can test ground to body. Same thing jumper cable to battery ground side and to the unrusted bolt on the frame and then on Body itself. (dont use jump box just the cables)


1 When you turn key to On do you hear fuel pump?
2. Are there lights in cabin, is radio, turn signals brake lights working?

Maybe good idea to do flight check and to test all the electric things to see if anything else is not working. (check lights, horn etc)
 
No spark at the plug wire or distributor cap (when I pull the center plug off the dist cap). Bad coil pack?
That probably would be the first guess.
 
All electrical stuff is working. Lights horn radio wipers etc. ECT sensor?
 
All electrical stuff is working. Lights horn radio wipers etc. ECT sensor?
ECT won't affect your coil (I am assuming you checked right and there is no spark on the distributor cap.) Although I have 1994 and away from my Manual for 1992 so unless there is some correlation between spark and ECT I would rule that out.

Silly question but there is a bolt on distributor cap used for adjusting timing I dont suppose it is loose but worth of checking.
If you can remove coil, you can get to autozone if there is one near by for checking otherwise you would have to check for wire continuity at the coil.
bulb + wire should help you if you dont have access to multimeter.

bulb+ wire should also let you check if breaker is working. maybe good idea is to slowly turn engine by hand to see if breaker gives power to coil.

EDIT: If you dont have bulb and wire and no other way to buy one, you can always cut the light marker on the rear. Its a small bulb with two wires perfect for checking and easy to fix later. Access is from the panel on the rear once you remove bottle jack.
 
Check the continuity on your EFI Relay and Fuel Pump Relay. I just replaced those and fixed a sporadic hard to start issue that I've put up with for years.
 
I'm told that it is probably the igniter (from a Toyota Tech). Got one on the way and going to put it in and see. The efi relay is good. Got a new one and put it in and that wasn't it. Ugh! Snowing like a bastard here too and 25 degrees! Awesome!!
 
How did you check whether there's a spark or not? Check the center wire on the distributor cap, make sure the connectors are not damaged at either end of that wire. Ensure that it's firmly plugged in.

Have you checked the rotor yet? You've double posted this on a different forum so it's a bit confusing on what's been done. On the other forum you mentioned you didn't have tools to pull it off. It should only take a philips head screwdriver to remove. I've seen rotors that have had the conductor ripped off because of too close of tolerances to the pins in the distributor.

Be sure to check all fuses - not sure if you've done that yet...
 
A few years back, my 97 had the same problem at the boat ramp, it stalled once upon arrival, when we were leaving it would crank, but not start, it didn't have a spark either, got an igniter and that wasn't it, turned out to be the fuel pump in the tank, just saying...
 
I checked the spark via pulling the plug wire to see if it would jump during cranking and did the same thing with the distributor cap, pulled center plug wire and checked for spark. None. The dist cap and rotor are less than a month old.

And LC's rarely have fuel pump issues. So I hope to he'll that isn't it because that's a PITA to replace and would require it to be towed so let's hope that isn't it. :meh:
 
The dist cap and rotor are less than a month old.

But did you check them? However if you don't have a spark, then something else is probably causing the issue.

Initially I was thinking possibly a bad ground, but if your cranking fine then it's probably not that.

Check those fuses though! If possible can the parts store guys see if there are any OBD codes?

Very poor timing for the vehicle to stop working, I feel for you. But whatever you do, try not to throw money at it until you know what the problem is.
 
My '92 80 won't start. It fired right up this morning and I drove about 20 miles. I then noticed it was idling low (around 600) and the lights were dimming. I put a new alternator, h2o pump, belts, hoses, thermostat and t-stat sensors a week ago and haven't had any problems with it since. I am cranking fine and thought maybe it was a battery issue but put a jump box on it and nothing. Going out to see if I am getting spark (BTW, new rotor and distributor cap about a month ago. Any suggestions? Of course it's started snowing after I stopped. Thanks.

Jeff
Jeff, did you ever figure this problem out? My 80 is doing the exact same thing!
 
Yep. Replaced the igniter and fired right up. Not sure where the igniter is on an HDJ80 but it's on the Passenger Side (DS in France) up by the fire wall. Here is a picture of the old one. Took 2 minutes to swap out.

Double check part numbers before ordering since your part number might be different.

ImageUploadedByIH8MUD Forum1421711061.833442.webp
 
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