98 Tahoe 5.7L no spark, no start

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mtimko57

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I see tons of these posts on here and tried to dive in but no luck yet.

About a month ago, the wife and I were out driving and suddenly the Tahoe just died. It was turning over just fine but would not start. After pushing it to the side of road, we got it towed home. I have been digging at this thing and nothing is working. Here is where I am so far...

I have had the Tahoe for 3 years now as my work horse. Purchased with 203k miles, now at 213K. Never a real issue with the thing. About a year and a half ago I installed a new fuel pump due to a bad sending unit so no working gage. So that is fairly new..

In march I purchased a new battery due to the old one dying in the cold weather. Still running strong so not a problem there.

A few people pointed my issue to the alternator. I removed that to get a new one and the auto store hooked it up and it tested just fine. I decided to double check and took it to another auto store down the road to test as well. Tested just fine!

The auto store guys pointed me towards the distributor. Took it apart and it didn't look bad. Spun just great with the engine. I still purchased a new distributor cap and rotor just incase. No luck with that one.

I pulled one plug and another after to test for a spark. NONE!

Another source pointed me to the Ignition coil. I purchased one of those and still nothing.

Last I went to the Ignition control module and replaced that as well. Still the same issue.

Now I am left stumped on where to go next...

Like I said, I have noticed zero issues beforehand and then it died in mid drive.
 
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mtimko57

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Also just pulled the code P1351 with my code reader.
I got about 3\4 tank of gas in there.
 
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mtimko57

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I found that before and already went through it. No luck... That is what led me to just replace the ICM with my fingers crossed since I had already replaced the other parts.
 

drakon543

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throwing parts at a problem is just a quick way to waste money. its a fairly basic ignition system following the diagnostics on that link will point you to the problem. as described in the link you need the crank signals to the tell the ecm to tell the icm to tell the coil to fire. did you check the stuff described in the link or just assumed it was the icm because you replaced the other items already. if you just want me to give you another part to throw at it you can replace your crankshaft sensor. if you have a broken wire your just wasting more money though. you have wires that run from the front bottom area of the engine up to the back driver side corner of the engine bay then over to the icm and cam sensor then coil. a basic multimeter can help you test most of that the link even gives you wire colors to make it easy.
 
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mtimko57

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Yes I went through the entire procedure. All voltages were present, ground was fine, switching signal blinked as it should.
I reran the procedure again today just to be sure. I also printed out a wire schematic and ran some testing to look for breaks in wires or bad connections. Tested continuity for all wires coming to and from the ignition coil and also the ICM. Everything looks good. I am at a loss here.
 

exp500

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Are you using a spark tester? Put it in the coil. Also when driving did you ever notice tach dropping or bouncing? Have you replaced the ground wire to firewall?
 
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mtimko57

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I have not replaced it. I am getting spark now but still not starting. Just testing with my multimeter read around 0.6 ohms from engine block to negative terminal. Someone was talking about the distributer timing might be off? not sure how to test yet.

No I never noticed anything wrong with the tach.
 

exp500

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P-1351 is definate timing off. Does your code reader support something like cam position offset? Give us some more info on your scanner setup.
P-1351 sets when a difference exists between crank sensor and cam sensor in Dist. Set to 0 degrees +-1 at 1000 rpm. Keep Dist clamp tight. Causes all sorts of driveability issues.
I recommend you clear codes, remove pos battery cable, and touch them together at ground term. Reconnect battery. Try to start, check codes again.
.6 Ohms is alot with no load on that big cable,Should be .1 Ohm, Grounds are very important.
 

drakon543

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P-1351 is definate timing off. Does your code reader support something like cam position offset? Give us some more info on your scanner setup.
P-1351 sets when a difference exists between crank sensor and cam sensor in Dist. Set to 0 degrees +-1 at 1000 rpm. Keep Dist clamp tight. Causes all sorts of driveability issues.
I recommend you clear codes, remove pos battery cable, and touch them together at ground term. Reconnect battery. Try to start, check codes again.
.6 Ohms is alot with no load on that big cable,Should be .1 Ohm, Grounds are very important.
completely forgot about this thread.
p1345 is the specific code for timing being off and will be triggered when it sees the timing go out +/- 2 degrees. .6 ohms is higher than it should be. passenger and driver side rear of the engine should be a ground strap. passenger i believe should be going to the fire wall driver side should be going to the frame. im unsure of why p1351 is popping up besides the description i found regarding it for high icm voltage or something of the sort. are you getting spark at the plugs now and are you testing with a spark tester or the plugs themselves. 5.7 vortec are known to be very picky about ignition components. either way you have spark now if you have spark try getting the truck to run with starting fluid. just too rule out the possibility of a different problem. anyway if you haven't cleared the codes since getting spark back definitely do that as exp500 suggested. dont want any codes hanging around you may have fixed keeping you hung up on. as dumb as it sounds i dont know how many times ive fixed something without realizing what it was i probably did to fix it until later. a simple bad connection could have been your spark issue. a poor ground with the engine being worse in the ignition circuit could have been that issue. blah blah anyway ya if you have spark at the cylinders now we should restart the diagnostics so we aren't hung up on something.
@mtimko57 i apologize for ditching your thread been pretty busy and forgot about it.
 

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