Hello Guys, I have a question for you car gods that I am hoping one you would bless me with a course of action to solve my problem. Two weeks ago I was driving said car on the freeway when a loud pop was heard. I immediatley pulled to the side of the road and looked under the hood to see what had happened(I thought my engine had blown up). What I saw was that my spark pulg wire had come competely off the spark plug and was laying on the engine. I put the spark plug wire back in its right place and shut the hood and proceeded to start the car again. Guess what happened another loud boom. Called AAA and had the car towed home. Had a neighbor come over who is a mechanic and told me after a few minutes that it could either be my Main relay or dist. Okay surfed this particulard site for how to test main relay and saw a post that said if you turn the car to the II spot on the ignition you should hear the fuel pump whine and so I did that and it whine so I assumed it was the dist. Went to junk yard and found the dist. replaced it and the car ran fine for about ten minutes. It cranks up fine no CEL, but when accelerating thru the gears it feels as though I'm driving with 3 cylinders and the fourth one kicks in and off speratically. Would this be cause by bad plug wires or clogged fuel injectors or something else. I apologize for the long post but wanted you to know what started this whole course of action. the car is a 5 speed also.

Thanks,
BB

 

Did you replace the spark plug (Replace all 4 while you're at it)? The only reason a wire will pop off like this is because the spark plug is loose or defective. Also running with a plug loose will eventually ruin the threads and then the whole plug blows out of the engine.

The wires are also kind of fragile and you can't spot bad ones by looking, so if the misfiring continues, try replacing the wire set too.

 

Is there a lot of engine oil on the end of the plug wire and on the valve cover where the plug wire blew out? Are you plug seals possibly bad? Maybe the PCV valve is clogged or stuck closed, allowing for excess pressure to build up in the crankcase?

As mk says, first check whether your spark plugs are loose. The plugs should be torqued to proper tightness.

 

Hey Guys thanks for the speedy response. To asnwers Mk's first question yes, I replaced all four spark plugs after the insident. But I did not replace the plug wires. Ron, I don't recall that wire that blew off had oil around the wire or not but will check that when I get to the house. Also, I will check to see if any of the plugs are loose.I have downloaded the shop manual and will tighten the spark plugs to the proper torgue specs.

 

I wanted to post back and say thanks to RonJ and Mk378 it was the spark plugs wires that were bad. Grab a new set from Autozone (only because they were free lifetime warranties are pretty nice). She is running fine and I plan on changing th efuel filter in a couple of weeks. Thanks big time for all the infoe guys.