So I just picked up a "non running" 1995 Vanden Plas
Timing ring was missing about half of it's teeth so the car would start and misfire horribly and eventually stall out.
After getting a new harmonic balancer and timing gear installed - pulled from my non running XJR (damper, timing gear and pulley line up but not the a/c pulley btw), the car ran perfectly fine. Was able to drive it about 20 miles to get my registration and emissions tests done but this car is located in Arizona so didn't want to drive it around in the 100f heat with no A/C so I waited until the original balancer got rebuilt but the car would start up, idle and run as it should with no issues. I was able to do an oil change and coolant flush while waiting for the rebuild to come in.

Now here comes the fun part.
Rebuilt balancer came in today and got it installed with the a/c belt and alternator belt.
Car started up fine right after install, tested a/c and everything seemed to be working as it should. Decided to test drive it to a trip to walmart and on the way there was when everything went downhill. 2 miles down the road everything seemed to be working ok, a/c was blowing cold while it was 105 degrees out, car was pulling strong (tested the kick down switch - which worked well) but my wife wanted to turn on sport mode - I've used it before after getting the car running so I was able to confirm it worked by seeing the dash light come on but for some reason this time when she enabled it the car just stalled out.
Haven't been able to get it to start since.
I've checked all fuses, relays related to ignition but still nothing. Tach reads about 200 while cranking.
I pulled the ECU and did see some corrosion in a few pins in the red connector but I installed another AJ16 4.0 N/A ECU from my 1996 XJ6 (totalled in an accident) that I installed into the car before I even bought the it because the previous owner thought the misfire was ECU related. I know my 96 ECU works fine because I've installed it into my 97 XJ6L and runs rine and I had no issues with my 1996 XJ6 before I got into an accident with it.

Now I'm at a lost as to what is causing my "crank but no start" issue with this 1995. I've tried resetting the inertia switch but just simply pressing it and even holding it down for 5 seconds.

Also I've tried my best to clean out the corrosion in the ECU connectors but what's weird is that all this happened by simply enabling sport mode...

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

 

Sorry that I have no ideas to offer, so I'll just have to observe


But I have to ask: How do half the teeth get removed from the timing ring!? Those things are about 1/8" steel

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No worries. I haven't found anything in the "No start your engine" thread either"

But when I first looked at the car, I noticed the missing teeth and asked the previous owner about it but supposedly he had no idea they were even missing or that the lower radiator mount had twisted so the pulley was grinding against the lower fan hub.
After towing it home and looking through the car, I noticed dried mud underneath the car, a deep scratch in the lower bumper.
My guess is someone took it into a field after some rain and didn't notice a big rock and ran over it, the rock bent the radiator mount and gear got caught on the timing gear and damaged the harmonic balancer.

I've attached a picture of the damaged timing ring...