rain - neutral safety switch
 

Hello All,
I am not mechanical at all and therefore need your collective wisdom. I drove our 1988 xj6 on a rain flooded street. It was like a small river - no , I could not tell until I was into it. The car died and now will not start. It tries but can't turn over. One person said they thought it was a neutral safety switch. What say ye?
Thanks!

Try removing the spark plugs and crank it. If water shoots up through the plug holes, you have your answer to a possible 'hydro-lock'.

bob gauff

dombrofam, lets clear up what you mean by the motor won't start. Are you saying that the engine will roll, but not fire? Or, are you saying that when you try to start the engine, you hear a click and the engine remains still? This makes a big difference in the diagnosis.

If the starter clicks and the motor does not move, I would venture to guess you have water in the engine and like was mentioned above, pull all of the plugs form the engine and slowly roll the engine over. This will allow the water to be safely removed from the engine. From there, you will have to determine if any other engine damage was done (attempt to roll the engine using the starter, if you hear some bad noises from the engine, then odds are you did something serious, no noises, probably got lucky).

If the engine rolls, then I would be venturing to guess that your ignition coil got wet and is shorting out (ie, sending all the spark directly to ground and not to the plugs). I would say to first try pulling out a spark plug, hold the hook part of the plug against the engine block as another person attempts to start the engine. If you see a small blue/white spark jumping the gap, then you know the coil is good. If no spark, problem with the coil or something associated with the coil.

Lets start from here and see where we end up. Thinking about it though. If you attempt to start the car and don't hear a click/motor doesn't roll over, it is possible you got a lot of water in the starter and it caused the starter to fail. The check for this is to keep the car door open, watch the dome light as you attempt to start the car. If the dome light dims as you attempt to start the car, you know the starter is getting power to it. If the light doesn't change, then you have a problem with the starter or the associated wiring.

Also check inertia switch.