Overheated, Died, and Won't Start

[xtrmerik]

'97 Overheated, Died, and Won't Start

My girlfriend owns a '97 Protege. She was driving on the highway and it overheated and died on her. After towing it to my house I started checking all the systems. I realized that she had run the car out of oil. Somewhere there had been a leak and the oil ran low, then the car overheated and died. Luckly the engine is not siezed. It cranks and turns over quite well, but will not fire up at all. I topped off the oil and I replaced all the spark plugs cause they looked like she fried them. I tested them and they are getting a good spark and it is at the proper time. It appears that it's getting fuel because, when I look down through the spark plug holes, the cylinders are wet and have some fuel in the bottoms. Also when I was testing the spark plugs, the one I had out shot a little fuel/air mixture out of the spark plug hole. I also tried taking off the air intake hose and shooting some carb cleaner into the intake manifold while cranking, with no results what so ever. I noticed a humming coming from the engine when the key is on. When I unplug the Fuel injector fuse the noise stops. I took two pictures of a coil/cylinoid thing (not really sure what it is), that seems to be eminating the noise or at least connected to what is. If you guys can help me out I would appreciate it. What is this thing that I drew the RED arrow to [first picture], and is it supposed to be humming when the key is on? When I unplug the connector attached to it [second picture] the noise stops. If anyone has any ideas as to what the problem likely is let me know. I'm not sure what to test now. We don't want to spend much money trying to fix it, as she is just wanting to get rid of it. I just want to get it running so that we may actually get a couple grand for it instead of $100.

 

[Captain KRM P5]

the noise you hear when you pull the fuse is possibly the fuel pump. if you over heated the car and ran it out of oil, chances are you blew the headgasket, warped or cracked the head.

 

[xtrmerik]

Warped or Cracked

If the head is warped or cracked, is that enough to make the car not run at all? Remember that the engine cranks and turns over great with no extrainious noise. Basically is sounds and acts like it should start up any second, it just doesn't. I beleive that the head gasket is blown. I was instructed to check the condition of the radiator fluid as a hint to that end. The car has been sitting for a while but I was not entirely prepared for what I found. The "fluid" has been changed to a light colored oily mud. If I spend the money to buy all the new gaskets needed, is it a good bet that the car will then run? Or is it possible that it is also warped or cracked and just replacing gaskets will not fix it? How do I know how bad it is? Will I have to replace the radiator or can I somehow flush the sludge out of it and return it to good working condition? Sorry for all the questions.