Crank Position Sensor

[gottabfast]

Has anyone seen the face of one of these? I pulled the CPS out of the 99 Solara (with the 5SFE) and it has a gash across the face that faces the crank teeth. There were metal shreds floating around the engine after the water pump broke so I'm wondering if one of those may have gouged the CPS. The symptom is no spark at all, so the engine won't start.

[gottabfast]

anybody????

[SC V6]

seen a 6 cylinders.. not sure I can be very helpful here..
only way you can be sure that its the crankshaft sensor is to check voltage, if thats all good, then possibly it might be the sensor and replace it.. but not having spark could be a few things

[Hefty]

usually when it comes to troubleshooting sensors running the codes from the computer is going to be your best bet. A completely dead sensor should show up when doing a key on engine off diagnostic. The crank sensor is used by the ECU to plot the modified spark advance. On other engines that actually have a mechanical distributor when any sensors used for plotting the modified spark advance went out the engine would go back into closed loop mode and use the unmodified mechanical spark signal from the distributor. I don't believe a distributorless engine has the ability to revert to a mechanical spark signal mode when a bad sensor prevents a modified spark signal from being computed. So, it is a possibility that the two issues are related but your check engine light should be on and when you pull the codes it should tell you exactly what is up. If there is no check engine light its possible that a code maybe trapped in continuous memory and will still be worth checking out.

You could always do the pull it and replace style of car repair but seeing that this sensor can run about $85 bucks that can be an expensive option, especially if you are wrong.

[gottabfast]

yea, that's why I haven't just replaced it...I'm used to distributors and mechanical ignitions. I'm going to put the sensor back on and see if the CEL comes on when I turn the key. I think I can borrow a scanner from someone to diagnose it if there is a CEL

[gottabfast]

Let's just say for a moment that the timing is off...wouldn't the motor still get spark? It's just not firing at all. I assume that if the timing it was off it would at least spark, but spark at the wrong time and still start but sound horrible? If it should spark, that would tell me that it's almost definitely the crank angle sensor.