I was talking about fixing my seat belt sensor stuff with Babyhuey, but now my car has a new, more serious problem....

A couple of times during the past week, my car has bucked like a rodeo bull during acceleration... This weekend, it quit starting all together. A few lucky times (and I mean like 1 outta 30), I was able to get it started and it would idle for about 30 seconds before going back off...

I thought it may be a bad coil, but the people I've talked to said they usually aren't that random. The car tries to turn over, but can never make it. I looked thourghouly throughout the engine compartment looking for any blown fuses or loose connections. Suddenly, I heard a strange buzzing noise from a black box near the intake manifold (key was still in the ON position on ignition)... I looked up this black box and discovered it was the throttle position sensor. I talked to the guy at the auto parts store and he agreed that this may be the problem...

I ordered a new one for about $86 and may attempt to install a new one sometime this week. The Haynes manual (which I just bought) says something about adjusting it, looks complicated I hope simply replacing it will do the trick...

Any suggestions/comments?

 

You said "the car tries to turn over,but can never make it". Do you mean that it will not crank over or that it will crank over ok but not start?

 

By some miracle, I got the car started again...

Had a friend take a look at it and disovered a LOT of carbon build up in the intake... He believed that the cold weather was causing the valve inside the intake manifold to stick to all the carbon gunk so the car wasn't getting any air when I tried to start it....

SO, I simply shot some carb cleaner in there and scrubbed the best I could with a toothbrush. Haven't had any trouble since. I'm so glad that was a cheap fix

Alrighty, now back to those pesky seatbelts!

 

UPDATE: turns out the distributor went bad... that was not cheap!

Runs ok now, it better!!!
I sincerely hope this car is worth keeping.