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Car runs great 99.9% of the time. Back in April, would not start...fuel pump would not run. Replaced FP relay and radio suppression relay. Hot wired fuel pump and it still would not run. Replaced fuel pump after identifying as Regina car from your literature and method from forum. Absolutely essential info....1,000 thank yous. Still did not start. Hot wired new pump and cracked fuel line at manifold and had pleanty of fuel. Tried again, pump ran for the 3 sec. w/ key on, started and ran perfectly for several weeks. Then same thing hapened 2 more times. Started and ran ...etc. Yesterday, car would not start at all, period. This morning, started right up w/ no coaching. No check engine light but did not check error codes.
The fuel pump I changed was definitely bad, and I think was separate from this sporadic no start problem.
Once car starts, it runs and does not stop 'till you shut it off. Car has 174,000 miles and I drove it 120 miles today at 80 to 85 mph. It does idle rough and vibrates the entire exhaust system. It has done this for years.
I had the following error codes before I changed the fuel pump: 221, O sensor; 223, idle valve(probably cause of rough idle), and of course the one that everyone has...321, cold start valve. Maybe there were more, but the system only stores 3 from what I have read. I also had the check engine light. Check engine light went away when I reset after installing the fuel pump. The light and error codes came back 2 weeks ago and again went away when reset.
Yesterday when the car would not start it was parked in the direct sun. Temp about 95 degrees in the shade and very high humidity. Before I replaced the fuel pump, my son reported that the car would not start on 3 or 4 occasions that he remembers were very wet...melting snow or heavy rain.
I scanned every post in the 700 Forum last night and also read the Brick FAQ, PM and maint info. I checked the fuse block and it looks OK, but I may take it apart anyway, except I would expect the car to stop intermitently w/ this problem I read in one of the very last posts that the ECU very seldom goes bad on Regina cars. True or False? I looked for the ground wires located between cylinders 2 and 3 beneath the intake manifold by the softplug but could not find them on my first and second try. Lots of stuff there, but don't think I saw ground wires. I would also expect the car to stop if I have a grounding problem, except if it was only for the initial 3 sec of pump time as the car never is starved for gas when operating. Same for coil pack.
I don't understand why the fuel pump operates properly after I hot wire it and run it for 5 seconds. I don't hot wire it through the relay, I cut the power wire to the pump near the fender well and wire nut it to a jumper wire and apply it to the + of the battery for 5 seconds. Reconnect it and it works...all but the last time.
Where do I go from here? Ground checks? Is there a good and specific reference for checking the ECU? I have a Chilton's 8428.
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