Ok, I was driving along fine today and out of nowhere the engine starting running rough. Hard to describe in words, the exhaust is making a nice loud puffing noise and it just isn't smooth. I drove it home a few hours later, starts fine and runs like crap. Has a decent amount of power but seems reduced.

I suspect a timing problem, will be checking plugs, wires and distributor tonight. Anything you guys recommend as a troubleshooter. I hope I can get my hands on a timing light.

Also, I would like to check the injectors/fuel delivery. How can I check that the injectors are working??

Any other input is also appreciated. Hopefully I can get everything back to normal tonight.

Thanks guys.....

 

check all that you mentioned, also may be your fuel filter got a piece of debris that is causing limited fuel flow.

 

If you had a failed injector I bet it'd throw a code.... perhaps a plug wire popped off or like you already said cap/rotor arcing etc... to see if you have a failed injector you could pull each spark plug and inspect them and see if one looks drastically differnet from the rest but I'm doutfull of that.... worst case scenario is either a failed injector or a loose timing belt that "jumped time"...

 

Well, I am halfway through the process. The inside of the distributor cap was full of white and brown discoloration, replacing cap and rotor......plugs were probably fine but I replaced them anyway. Tested wires with meter as per the service manual. I will post back once I have tested. I just had to get on here to look up the spark plug wire connection the the distributor (you would think I would have been smart enough to remember

 

Ok, got it all together and started it. Thought everything was fine, it seemed to run ok. But it wasn't. Same problem but I did notice that it would kind of run fine for a second here or there. I already checked vacuum but I am going to check again.

 

You need to DIAGNOSE if it is a single cylinder miss or a miss across the board .. chk engine lite on ?/ any codes stored ?

with engine at idle, remove 1 spark plug wire 1 at a time to see if you get a drop in idle ,, they should all drop even idle,, if 1 cylinder hardly drops in idle speed , that is the 1 that is misfiring,,,

quick test,, swap the plug to another cylinder if same cylinder misses you got an issue with that cylinder ,, plug wire? injector? tight valve ? dead cylinder ( low or no compression)
to test the injector put a screwdriver on it and on your ear chk to see if they are clicking , if it does most likely injector is ok ,, if no click,,( bad injector, or no power to it )
if that is all ok,, do a compression test ,,


let me know ..

 

This guy thinks of everything...thanks desert. I was going to try that but didn't know how the high voltage would arc and all. Replaced the plug wires and all is fine.

I don't really think that was the original problem, as the inside of the distributor cap was full of corrosion (almost like battery acid looking stuff) and I just don't see how a wire could just instantly fail while I was driving. Seems like to me that the wires actually failed when I disconnected (the one that was bad was really tight, thought I had put a lot of the grease on a while back).

Thanks again!

 

Glad that it is fixed .. good job