festiva will not start after Spark plugs was removed to look at them

[candy]

Hi I have a 1993 ford festiva 1.3L automatic 4 cylinder. I found someone on craigslist and he was suppose to only change the 02 sensor. My daughter called me and said that he was spraying something on the car and he also pulled the spark plugs to look at them. My daughter said when he started the car again after he put the spark plugs back in she saw a spark coming from where the spark plugs go. My daughter said he left and the car would not start. I called the guy and asked him what he did and he said I sprayed some cleaner on the airflow. I called a friend that I knew and the spark plugs needed to be changed any way so he changed them and put new wires, rotor, and a distributor cap. The car will turn over, but it still will not start. I have owned this car for 3 years and the only thing I ever did to it was put a alternator on it. Please help me! I thought the guy may have sabatoged the vehicle because he saw me selling a car in my drive way and he wanted me to sale him the car for 300.00 and I said that was too low and he begged me and when he left my car was not running. Please give me some suggestions. Thank You

[firebush357]

I would start with checking that the Air Flow Meter is plugged in (The Wires that go to the Air Intake Filter Box) Then pull a spark plug wire off of the plug and set it against the spark plug so that you can see if it is sparking while someone else tries to start it. If it is then put it back and check to see if it is getting fuel by pulling the rubber fuel line off of the fuel rail and put it into a bottle and try to crank the car and make sure fuel is coming out of the line. Report back to us after that and we can go from there.

[TominMO]

Welcome to the forum!

Most likely problem is he put the spark plug wires on wrong, messing up the ignition firing order. Or he put the rotor on wrong. IIRC it can go on in three different positions. This would also mess up the ignition timing. Sloppiness.

The spark "where the spark plugs go" could mean the wire is not on all the way.

[FestYboy]

Craigslist mechanics....

First question is why was the O2 being changed?
Then the firing order is 1342, with cyl 1 at the far passenger side. #1 wire goes to the top left post on the dizzy as you look at it from the driver side. The wires then go on order above counter clockwise.

[ryanprins13]

Seeing sparks is no good, but the new plugs, wires, cap and rotor fixed that right? If you check and rotor and wires are in the right position, the wire from the coil to the distributor is firmly attached and the connector on the air filter box is plugged in then try cranking it a whole bunch with the gas pedal all the way down. If he sprayed lots of intake cleaner in it you need to clear it out. Intake cleaner doesn't like to ignite. It will sometimes take quite a bit of cranking to get a car to start after spraying cleaner in it and you usually have to hold the gas pedal down a ways


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