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My girlfriend has a 3.0 OHV 96 Sable that lost a head gasket a month ago. I've replaced the gaskets, adjusted the valves, and buttoned her all back up but it won't start. It's missing spark on 3 cylinders, 1, 2, and 4, what appears to be one plug from each side of the coilpacks.
My experience with auto repair has been on GM vehicles. I consider myself an advanced backyard mechanic, having been inside of every part of a vehicle except for automatic and manual transmissions. I've never had a car not start after putting it back together so this is quite frustrating for me.
I didn't touch the cam sensor or crank sensor on the vehicle and from the experience I've had, I never had to mess with those items unless I actually pulled and/or replaced the part. Other than pulling the engine apart and putting it back together the only other thing I did was spin the crank with a wrench so that I could put the rocker arms back on correctly.
Being a 1996, 14 years old now I wasn't looking forward to pulling, tugging, or stretching the well baked wiring harness. I was as gentle as I could be while moving the harness to remove parts, but this no-spark condition is staring to make me think that I've broken a wire or two in the harness while pulling it apart.
For my own vehicles I purchase the manufacturer's service manuals, my girlfriend though only has the Haynes manual to work with. It's pretty generic on 96-99 vehicles, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something somewhere.
It's an old, worn out, dented on every panel vehicle which I've already had to dump about $800 into over the last month. I'm about ready to have her tow it to the salvage yard at this point.
Anyone seen this type of missing spark symptom before? Do I need to synch the cam or crank sensors even though I didn't touch the cam?
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