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Hey everyone, I'm having a fairly pressing issue with my distributor right now. I have an '82 924, and the plug boots rub up against the inside of the hood and have the insulation worn right down to the bare metal. This of course is a huge issue, because it wears the rubber coating on the wire to the point where the wire itself is exposed, causing all kinds of performance issues. What can I do to keep them from rubbing like that? Is there any kind of maybe low profile dizzy cap that I can get? I'm not really sure what to do about it. I even oriented the plugs in a way where they're as low as they can go, and still I'm finding that the wires are being worn away. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated, and thank you in advance!
Post up a few photos of your engine compartment, focusing on the orientation of the plug wires.
Alrighty, so here's what I got. I just changed the wires today and ziptied a chunk of rubber hose over where the wire meets the plugs to protect them. But as you can see there's a pretty sizable chunk of insulation worn right down over the dizzy cap
Are those NGK wires identical in form and fit to OE Bosch wires? Appears they may be sitting tall/proud from the distributor. Also, the intrusion from the extra hose material is probably making the interference worse.
Last photo...consider twisting the wire end closest to the firewall counter-clockwise a few degrees and running the actual wire under the two wires at 3 o'clock.
Are those NGK wires identical in form and fit to OE Bosch wires? Appears they may be sitting tall/proud from the distributor. Also, the intrusion from the extra hose material is probably making the interference worse.
Last photo...consider twisting the wire end closest to the firewall counter-clockwise a few degrees and running the actual wire under the two wires at 3 o'clock.
Honestly I'm not sure if they're exact to an OE fit, the wires that were on the car when we got it were just a cheap generic set from some local auto parts store, so I didn't have much of a comparison. But I will have to try reorienting that wire closest to the firewall, it is sticking up a bit. However, last night I tried to drive it and it ran fine for a few minutes, but backfired once, then periodically started to do this thing where I could be on the accelerator in either 3rd or 4th, just giving enough gas to keep up with traffic, and the engine would suddenly cut down to idle speed for a second, then kick back and the car would jerk forward. I'm really puzzled as to what could've caused that too, at first I thought maybe the clutch needed to be realigned since there isn't a lot of it left and maybe it would randomly disengage but I ruled that out because the rpms would've jumped up if I was still on the accelerator. I don't get what would've caused the engine to fall to idle speed for a second like that then kick back and start going. If it helps at all I can't tell for sure but bumps really seem to instigate this issue as well. Any ideas to what that might be about? She ran fine all day the day before with no problems, so I'm really baffled at this.
UPDATE*
Upon a curious inspection this morning, I found that this wire on top of the ignition coil was a little frayed let alone being exposed at all. Could this be contributing to, if not causing the loss of power? If so, what could I do and how difficult would this wire be to replace?
Okay cool, I had ordered a new coil yesterday after looking into it a bit more and learning the symptoms of a bad one. I'm going to get that replaced today and shortening that wire by just that much sounds like a good idea. Yet another issue has arisen, but I'm 90% sure I know what the issue is. So from time to time the car wouldn't start, but it would crank. Upon closer inspection you could hear that the fuel pumps weren't buzzing, so I would take a needle test light, ground it to one of the strut tower assembly bolts, and pull the female end plug out of the idle stabilizer. If I stuck the needle into the middle socket of that plug with the battery on, the pumps would kick on. So from this I know they work, it seems to be that the male end plugs on the idle stabilizer itself seem to not be making a good enough connection, and I know the male end plugs are like a little post that is divided into three sections. Should I try to separate them ever so slightly to ensure a more stable connection? The reason this is an issue now is because yesterday, frustrated with the issues the car has only been giving me lately, my dad went with me and he wanted to take it down a fairly bumpy road (Living in Michigan, we didn't have to drive far) to try to instigate another issue to see exactly what it was doing. She drove fine with no issues on the way there, and then not even 50 feet into the road, the car just quit. Luckily I had already built up enough momentum to roll to a nearby parking lot. Upon trying to start the car, we noticed the fuel pumps weren't buzzing. (Luckily I had the test light in the glove box because I knew exactly what was going on at that point and had it in the car anyways just in case) Grounded the light, took the plug out of the idle stabilizer and stuck the needle in the middle socket and sure enough, they came buzzing on and the car fired right up afterwards. So could the male end plug on the idle stabilizer not be making a stable enough connection to the female end plug and should I try to separate the sections of that middle socket post? That's really the only thing I can think of to solve that issue. And forgive my bit of ignorance here but what exactly does the idle stabilizer do, and how can it have dictation over whether or not the fuel pumps work? I really enjoy learning about the specifics of these things.
Doubt the idle stabilizer is the cause of your problem.
Most likely cause, due to vibration from bumpy roads, is the plug/harness connection at the reference sensor. Next time the car quits, carefully wiggle that connection and try to restart the car.
Well I replaced the ignition coil and redid the wire connections on the top of it, and after about a week there still hasn't been any running issues, so I'm at least hoping I took care of that issue. The coil that was on it looked like it was a decade or so overdue for a change so that was probably causing a lot of issues. However now the only issue I'm having is that the transaxle is leaking. Is there any kind of gasket or something I might need to consider replacing? I just filled it a week or two ago and it's leaking very slowly but still nonetheless.
Sorry for the late reply, it's been raining here the past few days and with no garage I haven't gotten the chance to get up under the car. But anyways it seems to be coming from the bottom-most bolt on the transaxle, it's honestly hard to tell though.
Sorry for the late reply again, I've been observing the car and it seems like over the past week the transaxle has stopped leaking, I'm wondering now if maybe I had just filled it too much and maybe excess lube had leaked out of it, of course I'm not completely sure of that though. So here's another performance update, the car had began to run very rich after a couple days of activity, so my dad and I adjusted the air/fuel mixture, the one you use a 3mm allen key for, along with the adjustment screw on the front of the throttle body housing accordingly. We had done it a few weeks ago to get the car to idle at the Hayne's manual suggested 950rpms at idle whilst not running too rich. We got it pretty much where it needs to be, and I bought a can of sea foam and added a bit of it to the fuel system, just to help in any way it could. Took it for a quick cruise around the block afterwards and the throttle response was once again surprisingly sharp. However this is the second time we've had to re-adjust those components, and only after a few weeks. Could there be anything specific causing these adjustments to go out of whack? Something to keep in mind, the struts are bad and really in need of replacing, and the roads I live around aren't the worst but aren't terrific either, though I baby it in every way I can. Could just the vibration of driving down the road cause that? They seem to adjust fairly easily, especially the one on the front of the throttle body housing.
P. S. Yes, to answer your question. It was spotting the ground, though the spot ceased to get any larger (I park in the same spot in my driveway every time I get home) and then finally stopped leaking overall, I parked it in another spot for a day and nothing showed up under the transaxle.
08-02-2016, 11:48 PM
Spark Plug Wire Issue
