After installing water pump, timing belt, tensioner, drive belts, new A/C belt tensioner, I tried to start it up and it won't start!

Cranks over energetically, but won't fire.

I removed the plugs to allow turning engine over easily, plugs and coil packs are now back in, of course.

I was obsessively careful to maintain crankshaft and camshaft timing marks, turning it two crankshaft revolutions numerous times. Marks always lined up.

Car is still in service position. There are no engine codes, using a generic code reader.

Any ideas? Any reason timing belt job would result in not starting?

And, is there any detailed "car won't start" diagnostic here or elsewhere?

Many thanks.

John

 

Been there a few times on a few engine jobs. In almost every case, while fearing the worst what I found was some plug that was left hanging. Go over every plug on the wiring harness, then check all fuses.

 

If you've turned it over by hand and using the starter, there isn't any chance that you've got valve interference.

As mtroxel stated, this probably isn't a mechanical issue. There must be something you unplugged while doing the TB that didn't get plugged back in.

 

It finally started after I pumped the gas, like old carburetor cars that would get "flooded."

It was very rough and there was a puff of smoke. The smoke came and went too quickly to see clearly, but it looked white or grey in the rear view.

It then smoothed out somewhat. I have to put the coolant back in and drive it around to see if it smooths out.

I wonder if turning it by hand 4 times did something to flood the engine?

This happened once before when I was not working on it. It would not start for a few minutes then started and was rough, then smoothed out.

Thank you for your help.

John

 

Nope. No signal went to the injectors to open them up. Besides, a lot of us turn them by hand before we put the front back together. But that doesn't mean I've got it figured out, just don't like that theory.

BTW, it's not great to start them with no coolant. You won't overheat it with 20 seconds of running with no load. But the new water pump needs coolant for lubrication.

 

I should have said "top off the coolant." There was as much coolant as would fit without opening the heater hose hole and running the engine to get the air out.