96 ST 1.8l Will not start
Steves96ST
Sep 27, 2026 11:06am
Im having an issue with my 96 Celica ST 1.8L. It overheated the other day, and turned off. Let it cool down and added the coolant back into it, (turns out the radiator went bad, but not the focus of this question), tried to restart it, and it will turn over but not fire. Checked for spark at each of the plugs, None, Checked for fuel after cranking, None.
Took resistance readings the distributor plug pins. Across the top left and top right, I got a reading of 65 ohms; bottom left and btm right 0ohms. The other four combinations of pin resistance readings all read OL. I thought the coil might be going bad and also noticed a little oil inside the distributor cap, leaking down near the bolt hole. Replacing the distributor changed the resistance reading to 240 ohms that is in spec, no change in the other reading and no change in the original problem. I do not have an O-scope to test the Igniter signals yet, but I am curious if that might be the cause. Any help in diagnosing this issue would be of great assistance. This all happened after an overheating event. Right before the car was turned off, it did start misfiring.