mbonner

Well, I just spent another $1,500.00 at the shop, on a front bearing oil seal, shaft seals, waterpump replacement, etc, and to add insult to injury on the way to the mechanic, the car would not start after a brief stop at a drugstore, the starter motor kept spinning around even with the key out. This happened once before so I had a wrench taped to the battery for a fast disconnect. Tried to reconnect the battery after the car cooled down, a major light show of sparks.
Had the car towed to the mechanics place instead of driving it, and they rebuilt the starter motor, a 951 small one, 18 months old and they did all the seals and waterpump stuff.
Having spent a lot of bucks, I thought the car might be reliable enough for my wife to drive the 3 hour trip home. Not so, she called me on her cell saying the car died on the highway. I arrived to find a pissed off wife as she had been stuck beside the Trans-Canade highway for 2 hours before she reached me on my cell.
I opened the hood and the cable from the coil was laying loose. I pushed it back into the coil. Off she went, the wife, muttering a lot and got home OK.
Two weeks later, yesterday, the car died, I opened the hood, cable to top of coil again laying in engine compartment. Notice hole in top of coil burned and full of grey ash and the same in the inside of the cable end.
Seems the cable end blew out from the top of the coil. Can this happen?
Mike

SoCal Driver

Is it a stock cable? The only problems I've seen in twenty years of driving my 83 is where the cable at the coil corroded inside the weather boot to the connector. I found this when I went to replace the cables a few years back. If you have aftermarket ends then yes the cable can come loose at the coil and come off.

mbonner

No! This was an Iceshark cable setup. Fitted after I bought the set from Dan. I'm the guy who had his 944 wander across the barn into a farm equipment item of heavy steel.
Problem here is coil, cable coil end and lots of white ash indicating arcing/sparking inside the top of the coil. Think I need a new coil and cable end, both show white ash and are pretty chewed up by arching.
Water in the coil at one time?
Mike

SoCal Driver

Water. Yes. I didn't know that Dan was making sparkplug cable sets. I use the BERU ends and make my own cables buying the threaded crimp ends from www.kingsborne.com

I've not known a coil connector to come off. Just the wire pull out the other end of the connector at the coil.