Mattman928

Okay, I was finally able to get back into the garage tonight. I see two issues, it looks like I accidentally routed the main coil to distributor wire around the overall wire harness that crosses in front of the engine.

Also, when I was trying to follow the wire to the Hall sensor I found a tiny crack in the Hall Sensor connector. When I touched the wire to examine more closely the plug crumbled (sigh). Looks like I will be tackling the dreaded Hall Sensor project next week.

Time to research how to get the old sensor out. from my reading it seems that the engine lift bracket has to be removed? I see one posted was able to do it w/o removing the bracket. Not sure if that was fiction.

Thanks to all, I will report back once I have had a chance to complete this project. Any tips or tricks are appreciated

Mrmerlin

S4Houndog it might be the camera angle,
but the alignment pin sure looks like its not square going into the pin holder in you picture.

s4hounddog

Thanks MrMerlin, it's the wonders of optical illusion from using s cell phone camera.
If you need to access the Hall sensor then the belt and cam gear needs to come off.

Mattman928

If you need to access the Hall sensor then the belt and cam gear needs to come off.[/QUOTE]

Is that really the case??

I have not been successful finding a DIY for driver side hall sensor, but I was under the impression that you could remove from back of cam housing without having to remove belt and cam gear. Am I incorrect?

worf928

Yes. You *may* be able to get it out from the back side; it all depends upon tolerances between the cam cover corner and one of the Alan bolts for the sensor.

You will need to rig-up the right Alan bit with a very long extension.

You have a '90: you could use the Bosch Hammer, Shark Tuner or Theo tool to see if the ECUs are throwing a Hall sensor error before you go to the trouble.

Mattman928

Sooooo.. no sawzall?



QUOTE=worf928;14096301]Yes. You *may* be able to get it out from the back side; it all depends upon tolerances between the cam cover corner and one of the Alan bolts for the sensor.

You will need to rig-up the right Alan bit with a very long extension.

You have a '90: you could use the Bosch Hammer, Shark Tuner or Theo tool to see if the ECUs are throwing a Hall sensor error before you go to the trouble.[/QUOTE]

worf928

You might have to loosen the cam cover if the corner occludes the bolt head.

Some 87+s the cam cover has to be loose to get the Hall sensor out. On some you have to take the Hall sensor out to get the cam cover off. And on some you can do it in any order.

Obviously you want to get as much stuff as possible out of the way. You will need to: remove the lift loop, get the FME harness out of the way, plug wires, etc. I also disconnect the air pump hose from the diverter so that I can get it out of the way.

The other way to do it, when you are R&Ring the cam gear on that side, is to just remove the backing plate with the sensor still attached. This is what I do on '87 or '88 when I do a belt since I almost always replace the Hall sensor (since there's no diagnostic port to check for a Hall sensor code, better safe than sorry, unless you have records that show the sensor to be young.)

worf928

Also, before you proceed R&Ring the Hall sensor, make sure your cams are timed correctly. (I think that's covered in this thread, but I haven't had time to read each post in detail.)

Mis-timed cams usually result in a poor idle. A bad Hall sensor will result in no power above ~3500 rpm but below that will feel 'normal.'

Mrmerlin

A tutorial to remove a Hall sensor .
You could also remove the cam pulley and timing belt and front cover to complete this task.

These directions are for not touching the timing belt or cover or pulley.

to remove the Hall sensor .
Disconnect the battery,
remove the intake tube,
then loosen the clamp on the egr air hose from the valve,
remove the hose and the clamp and push it down under the cam cover.

Make sure to remove the clamp from the hose so you dont lose it.

If you have a ground wire or cable clamp on the hook remove them.

Disconnect the 14 pin stud and connector this will let you move this harness out of the way

Remove the #1 ignition wire from under the clamp of the lifting hook.
Disconnect the hall sensor connector from the harness,
a pin hook tool works good here to move the spring clip off the connector body.

Use a small 13mm socket on a ratchet to loosen the lifting hook bolt.

With the bolt loose about 5 turns the hook should pivot to the rear of the car.

Now you need a long 1/4 inch drive extension atleast 12 inches long and a allen wrench socket either 4 or 5 mm to loosen the hall sensor bolts, do the bottom bolt first. you should also have a flashlight to see what your doing. make sure the allen driver seats into the bolt before you turn it.

Take your new hall sensor and test fit it into the back of the cam tower ,
it should seat easily ,
if you find that you have to force anything,
stop and remove it ,
as you could mis mount the sensor and then bend the trigger,
this will damage a lot of things.
get the sensor cover and sensor put in the top bolt,
snug the sensor down this will seat it and it should align onto a pin.
then put the bottom bolt on the allen and carefully put it into place.

NOTE use some glue or black putty to hold the screw so it doesnt drop off.
The new Hall sensor has a shorter wire so the car side of the harness will now have to be rerouted over the cam tower instead of under it. try to rout the wire so it has the least amount of contact with the ignition wires

s4hounddog

Yes, by the book. ..but I find it much easier to pop off the belt, cam gear and then pull the passenger backing plate off. It is held to the backing plate with two M5 Allen head (4mm) bolts. They can be removed with it in place though

worf928

A bit. It's taken me ... all my life to date ... to figure out that people don't like hard answers to questions or being corrected. (I need to remember this when talking to upper management rather than ... well, that's another story.) Many people would rather have a potentially correct answer placed such that they trip over it when you're not watching. Then, since they 'found' the right answer they can a) look good and b) direct credit to whoever they want if not themselves.

It is what it is. Rennlist provides practice

s4hounddog

Mattman928,
Please let us know what you find and what the problem was.
Cheers

Mattman928

I definitely will, as I posted above I went back into the engine bay with a bright light and found a hairline cracked in the connector to the hall sensor, when I tried to pull out the sensor to examine the cracks it crumbled. I also noticed that I had fed the wiring harness through the coil to distributor wire loop. So the source may be either EMI or the cracked sensor connector.

I've ordered a new sensor and a set of extended ball end allen key sockets to try and make removal easier. I'll post once I've completed the project. It may be a week or two, but I will follow up




QUOTE=s4hounddog;14100822]Mattman928,
Please let us know what you find and what the problem was.
Cheers[/QUOTE]

SeanR

Did you find out why the belt is getting worn so much?

Mattman928

Okay, I'm back to work on this project. I am having a heck of a time getting the hall sensor allen bolt off the back of the cam plate. I am going to try a couple of more things then I may be relegated to pulling the timing belt again (sigh).