I finally have my truck running consistently on all eight cylinders.
I never did run a compression test - will do that in a few weeks,
time permitting. I did replace the plugs, plug wires, and rotor (the
cap looked fine) and I was beginning to think the problem might be
tired injectors. Symptoms: the engine would stumble at idle and
occasionally under heavy acceleration. It ran fine at highway speed,
and all the plugs looked fine. I thought - maybe a vacuum leak? But
the few vacuum lines seem fine, and the brake booster works okay.
Well, it turned out to be the stock coil. Somewhere around 100,000
miles it must have dropped in output by a notch. This may explain
why it was so sensitive to plug gap (as I reported earlier, it
picked up a cylinder or two at idle when I regapped the old plugs).
I bought an Accel coil, but I wanted a good water-tight seal at the
end of the wire harness, and I didn't want to chop off the stock
connector. So I went to the dealer and we went through quite a lot
of the electrical accessories. All of the male connectors that would
mate with the harness are on other sensors! So I decided to buy a
new stock coil, and dismantle the old coil to get the terminal. In
the meantime, the stock replacement coil is working fine. At last!
I think I'll incorporate a heat shield when I mount the Accel coil.
The stock position offers great air flow, but is also damn close
to the exhaust manifold, and I'm sure the coil gets cooked after
engine shut-off. I _might_ relocate so I have a shorter coil lead,
but even the Accel coil is a short-term solution. What I really
want to do is build a coil-over-plug distributorless system. I'll
keep you all informed...
Jim
"Any government that is big enough to give to us everything we want, is big
enough to take from us everything we have!" -- President Gerald R. Ford,
speaking to the Republican National Convention
in San Diego, CA on Aug. 12, 1996.
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