Hello, I got a 1990 lx 2.2L automatic and lastnight coming home from work two Minutes into the drive it stalls. So I start it again and it can keep running if I keep it around half throttle with the tach bouncing all over the place. So I get it into gear without stalling and take off. It starts to die despite me trying to give it some more fuel and huge backfires and smoke. So I figure my 5 yr old $200 car is finally dead. I pull over and now the oil light is blinking. I managed to get it home with tach bouncing around and stalling issues and blinking oil light. Then tonight I get home from work (drove my truck instead) and I see I left the interior light on for exactly 24hrs. Crap. So I get in, cross my fingers and surprisingly it fires right up... no tach issues no blinky oil lights, nothing. Sometimes all the door ajar & brake lamp burnt out lights all light up at once too. So I was reading around some say oil pressure sending unit, or pump, seems more like a short somewhere? Any ideas? I'm trying to run this till the wheels rust off ha. Only 196,000 miles.. just getting broken in!

 

Hey there partner,that's a good 1?the oil preasure lite would come on if the oil pump wasen't delivering any oil,you said it backed fired and smoke?what color was the smoke black or white? have you had any recent work done on it?
check the oil dip stick and look for drops of water they will look like bubbles in the oil.
And what is a tach???and the last part you wrote is hard to understand its about your lites?

 

Het again, this all happened at 11:15pm so I couldn't tell you what color the smoke was. Just saw it get a bit cloudy in the headlights behind me. No water in oil that I see, I'm gonna drain it tomorrow. By tach I mean tachometer. The rpm needle was just bouncing all over the place. The last part I was referring to may be an electrical issue or short being the culprit because my dash lights for the doors all being open flashes sometimes also. Today it started right up, drove up the driveway to my garage and had no sputters or anything. So i bought fresh oil & filter and I'll check pressure sending unit while I'm under there. Maybe it's just temperamental?

 

Tach bouncing means the ignition system has some faults; ignitor, coil, spark plug wires, or plugs. Any recent maintenance work?

If Check Engine Light is on, what DTC's are set?

Most likely explanation for oil pressure light is faulty sensor. Easier to replace than test in most cases.

good luck

 

Nope, no check engine light came on during this whole ordeal. It never comes on during any of it's episodes. It was acting up a few months ago I put on new plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor. New valve cover gasket as well. New alternator a few weeks ago and new battery as well. I haven't checked Icm or coil yet. I guess that would be a good idea. It doesnt act up much, I don't care when it does it leaving work but on the way to work is irritating!

 

Only thing I will add, a bad ground (battery connections - note that you did some recent work, or on the t-stat housing - where the lower rad hose connects to the engine) can cause all kinds of strange things. Costs almost nothing to check, clean, tighten these.

 

Hey thanks, I'll check that out, it does seem like a short/bad ground. It did it again on the way home from work. I jiggled the keys around and it didn't seem to do it as bad but it didn't seem like there was a definite sweet spot that did an instant fix. Earlier today i cleaned the screen in egr which was gunky, tightened valve cover, checked plug wires, looked over vacuum lines, pulled air filter and pipe off intake and noticed a bit of oil in the pipe by the intake? Pcv valve looks good. I guess I'll do some more looking tomorrow in am. Thanks

 

I disconnected and cleaned the ground on the t-stat housing. No luck. So I tore the ignition switch out and the contacts look worn on the edges.

I am gonna hotwire it (without cutting ignition wires) to see if that fixes and also check ignition connection in fuse box. I guess another idea would be ignition control module?

I'm just troubleshooting what I can first for free. I hate buying tons of parts to realize it was something like a loose wire!

 

sure sounds electrical to me.

tach bouncing, dying, stalling could be oil into distributor. Oil light don't connect here though. So open up dizzy and see if oil in it. 7 minute job at most.

beyond this almost worthless thought I'm in dark.

 

I took distributor off and didn't see any oil
In the housing but my rotor just slipped right off. So I'm hoping it was just the loose rotor causing the problem? I'll post once its back together after breakfast