[John Wood]

Got reman PCM and installed. Now tests come up good and can hear relay clicking when grounding. STILL won't start. Pulled sensors to check them, and they both have the paper on them. Removed paper and tried again, no go. All it does is make one attempt to start and then the starter just cranks away.
I guess we will separate the tranny and motor and try the flexplate as that seems to be a common well known culprit.
Any thoughts or other suggestions?

The paper on the sensor is usually swept away when the vehicle is cranked. It almost sounds like the crank position sensor depth was not set correctly. If you still have the paper spacer, re-attach it with light adhesive and reinstall the crank position sensor depth so that it just bottoms out against the flex plate. Then when you crank the engine, the paper should come off and leave a gap of about 1/64 of an inch which would be enough to not make contact with the plate, but provide enough of a gap for the sensor to work.

I assume you still get the code, even with the new PCM.

 

[John Wood]

There is only 1 way it will go on. The bolt pattern spacing is very slightly different, even though it is not apparent. There should be a supporting/bolt locking ring that goes on the back of the plate. You can match mark that to the plate and also use it to determine orientation for the correct bolt hole pattern.

 

[John Wood]

Check the thickness of the paper spacer. Realizing that it gets swept away on the first rotation of the flex plate, that would tell us that the actual gap is less than the paper spacer thickness. Since the flexplate can not be 100% true (i.e. a perfect diameter over 360 degrees), the spacer is likely there to help prevent contact between the widest part of the plate and the bottom of the sensor. Any contact, of course, would make noise and possibly damage the sensor. It is my understanding that too close a gap is only a concern for contact with the plate, but too wide a gap will reduce the Hall-Effect pulse and potentially cause missed pulses, missfiring, and error codes.

 

[John Wood]

I've stacked a half a dozzen post-it notes and cut about a 3/8 X 3/8 sq in (cut on the sticky side). If the sensor is clean this will stick long enough to set the sensor in and tighten it up.

Nice to know you can buy the spacer at AAP and I hope they give you a few in the package for that price.