# Can problems with timing belt cause NO SPARK?



## FighterJet (Jul 13, 2001)

Hey everyone,
NO SPARK ISSUE? My 2.0 died one night. Thinking it was a broken timing belt (which i've had in the past), i took it to a local shop to have that replaced. The mechanic SAYS the timing is fine because the belt is turning. He's replaced the coil, distributor, rotor, wires, plugs...and is getting no spark
My question is...if the belt has slipped some notches or broken, will there be no readings or spark. I have a feeling he just oversimplified because the belt was MOVING...it will crack but won't fully start. 
I'm glad he's not charging me for the parts that DON'T resolve the issue, but the car has been down for 4 days now....with no end in sight. Thanks in advance for the input


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## bearing01 (May 27, 2004)

*Re: Can problems with timing belt cause NO SPARK? (FighterJet)*

If the timing belt slipped several teeth then the camshaft AND distributor rotor may both be retarded. If the rotor was too retarded then the coil can create the spark... but if the rotor isn't on a dizzy cap terminal then you won't get spark routed to the plug wire.
Tell him to test for spark coming out of the coil. Just pull the high tension wire at the distributor, from the coil, and test for spark there. You should be able to fit a spark plug directly into the coil's HT wire and ground it to the manifold while you crank the car. If there's no spark out of the coil then make sure you got 12V and ground at the coil. If that's good then check the signal going to the coil from the computer, with either a NOID light or a LED with 330 Ohm resistor. If the NOID light (LED) doesn't flash then the problem is either the crankshaft sensor or the computer.
Pull the timing belt cover and make sure the cam gear marks line up when the distributor is on plug wire #1 terminal. There's a green plug in the tranny that if you pull & look in there, there's a dot on the flywheel that should see when you're at #1. There's also an arrow on the plastic lower timing belt cover that should point / align with a line-mark on the perimiter of the harmonic balancer.


_Modified by bearing01 at 11:01 PM 9-19-2006_


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