Just had an interesting experience

[manlymatt83]

Turned my car on, and immediately car started shaking. Drove it a few feet and the check engine light came on blinking. Pulled over, restarted, check engine on solid.

Took to mechanic. Cylinders 1, 3, and 4 (4 cylinder car) are misfiring. Also is a random misfire code.

He says he thinks it may be a cracked distributor cap since it only happened while it was raining and I had a tune up recently.

Thoughts?

 

[nakedfrog]

Did he... uh... look at the distributor cap?

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Did he... uh... look at the distributor cap?

post a picture of the box that all the spark plugs are starting from

That is your Distributer cap

also when that happened to me the contacts inside the cap had worn away, also might be time to put a new rotor in the distributor, IMO change the rotor and cap it should be a easy DIY 30min project


First make note of which wire is going to which number on the cap
Remove the 2 - 3 screws holding the cap on, remove the screw that holds the rotor then the rotor should come off, replace with new rotor, put the new cap on, replace screws. Then make sure you put the spark plug wires to the right number on the cap

Not too bad?

 

[franksta]

Could very well be the cap, plugs, or plug wires. Cap seems most likely in my mind to make multiple cylinders misfire.

 

[SSSnail]

If a lot of cylinders are misfiring, chances are it's your cap. Trace your wires to a round plastic thingy, that's your distributor cap. You easily can take it apart and inspect yourself, and clean the contacts. If it's bad, go buy a new one and slap it in.

 

[MadAmos]

If you do change the cap yourself (and that is likely the problem) spend a couple extra bucks and replace the rotor as well, and if the sparkplug wires are oe I would change them but only with a quality set I have had good luck with Bosch or NGK (my preference).

Amos

 

[Zenmervolt]

If you take the cap off yourself, do not remove the wires from the cap. If you just pull off the wires without marking them, you will have a hard time getting them on the new cap in the right order. Usually what I do is remove the old cap with the wires still attached, then move the wires, one by one, to the correct posts on the new cap, then I put the new cap on the distributor. When you replace the wires, replace them one at a time.

ZV