I'm stranded....help!!!

[Smokey_McGee]

Any replies or help are greatly appreciated.

My 92 3.1TBI baby has been stuck in my drivway for almost two months. It started when I was going 65 down the highway when the engine began to cut out with my check engine light flashing.
I can keep it from dying except when idling....it sucked in traffic at stoplights.

Since then I get a flashing infl. rest. light everytime it started up...untill it stalls with my check engine light flashing on and off coinciding with this odd clicking.

Now it will barely start at all, if it does it dies seconds later. It was taken to a shop where they replaced the battery, cables, starter, and spark plugs...but it didnt fix anything (I probably threw my starter out by cranking it too much) they said it was the anti theft system and that I would need a new wiring harness only 400 bucks....nah

I have no clue whats going on and this is my first time under the hood. Any ideas of where to start or what to do would be greatly appreciated. I really am tired of walking to work :)

[junyur99]

i just went through the same thing with my 89 2.8
i replaced EVERYTHING, plugs, wires, cap rotor, wiring harness, fuseblock, couldnt figure it out. I was also told it was the anti theft device, but as i was hating myself wondering where i was going to get the money i realized, if its the anti theft device, the starter wont kick on, and since the only things in the ignition system i hadnt replaced were the coil and the distributor, i replaced the coil and wasted another 27 bucks, so i took the distributor in and had it test, inside of it there is a secondary coil(pickup coil) type deal that is common to go bad in 3rdgens, but cannot be replaced without buying a distributor, so i forked out 150 bucks for a remanufactured one and now my car runs like a pro,
Junyur99

[LinuxGuy]

Hmmm, from your description, I doubt the pick-up coil. Especially with a flashing SES light coinciding with a click...wierd. Sorry I don't have any ideas.

Um, the pick-up coil is an $8 - $13 piece that can be replaced without having to buy a new distributor. I've done it on my '87 when it died and caused starting problems. I plan on doing it on my '89 when I am doing some other things, just to replace it and have the piece of mind since it is so cheap. Just have to pull the distributor and take it apart, cheap Haynes manaul has good instructions for disassembling it (easy too).