jmartinez

could the harmonic balancer cause the vehicle not to turn over? i was told its the harmonic balancer that possibly just gave out and now the car wont turn over at all?

renatodato

Very unlikely. More likely culprits are the charging and ignition systems. Check the starter. Are you getting spark? Is your battery charged?

jmartinez

battery is charged, i am getting spark, engine sounds like its locked

dmight

Battery is full charge and starter working but the engine won't crank because engine is locked? Very first thing to do is check the timing belt, to see if it has skipped or broken. As much talk there is on here about timing belts and what would happen when and if they go bad! "0" tolerance engine!
Continuing to try to crank locked engine = more internal damage every try.
Pull the timing belt covers off, check the belt.
Year of car? Mileage? Is there oil in the engine?

mdbrown

Try turning the engine over manually with a breaker bar on the crank bolt. If the engine won't budge it's either locked up at the crank or hydrolocked. Try removing the spark plugs and see if it turns over.

jmartinez

2000 es
120k
im pulling the crank pulley and timing cover off in the morning, im gonna remove the belts and smin them to see whats going on

BDSL

Before you do anything, just like mdbrown said, turn the crank bolt by hand (i.e. breaker bar) to see if the crank turns. Of course, put the transmission to "neutral". If it turns, then it eliminates the seized harmonic balancer possibility.

And have you checked the starter?

jmartinez

once i spin the alt pulley to "unjam" whatever is stuck, then try and start it, she'll startm then stall or lock up. so i doubt its the starter.

mdbrown

Make sure it's not hydrolocking or you'll end up breaking a connecting rod