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Ok, my 91 EGT has been missing considerably lately. I found a pretty bad coolant leak in a small hose under the air intake and fixed that. I thought that it was the cause of the missing because it reminds me of how an old car of mine ran when the wires were damp. The engine compartment is dry as a bone now, so I don't think that's the problem unless it's a short or some damage done from the previous moisture. Until today it never is a problem when I initially start the car. It'll run fine for couple of minutes, but not long, and only once today did it do it right away. It'll hesitate like it's missing during idling and acceleration. I can either power through it and get the RPMsup until it stops, or I've found that if I back off of the gas it'll stop missing and then i can accelerate smoothly back up to speed. When I'm at highway speeds I can feel a miss here and there, but nothing horrible. My initial thought was that it was some sort of tune up related issue (i.e. new plugs, wires, cap, rotor, air/gas filter), and I haven't done that needed tune up yet, but now I'm wondering if there's a bad ground, an exposed wire, or some damaged electrical component. I'm hoping it's not the alternator going bad because I put one in last year and that was a HUGE annoying pain in the arse of a job. I don't have a code reader so I don't know if there are any faults, and have no idea where I could get the checked and trust the codes/not have to pay a ton to find out the fault codes. Any of you experience anything like this?
Well the problem is getting worse, so I took the car to an Auto Zone and had them run an electronics diagnostic test on it. The battery came back fine, but the alternator was only putting out 58 amps, and I think for my car it's supposed to be 65. Is there any way I can test to see if it's just the voltage regulator, or not? Also, could this possibly be something other than the alternator? It's only 7 amps off, and I don't know how accurate those tests are, or if there is anything else that could throw that off like that. The alternator was replaced about 15 months ago.
I had the alternator rechecked today and it was fine. When it was idling poorly I pulled the plug wires one by one and listened for a change. It got worse for all but one, so I decided a plug change was in order (I was seeing a spark from the wire, so I assume the wires, cap and rotor are fine). I noticed some oil on the outer half of the plugs, below where the cap connects, and right above the tightening nut. The plugs are set way down into the valve cover, so I'm guessing the valve cover gasket is bad, and the oil is dripping into the plug bays. I wasn't able to get the plug closest to the distributor out because it was in too tight, and I'm scared if I torque it too much that I'll break it and not only will I not get it out, but I'll lose use of that cylinder. This plug also had a lot more oil on it than the others... to the point that it was dripping off of the wire when I pulled it out. Do any of you have suggestions as to how I can get this plug out without doing any serious damage? Keep in mind that I have an aluminum head. Even with the three plugs replaced I noticed an immediate and drastic improvement in how the engine ran. It was so bad and then it was missing only a little bit. I drove the car around all day and I have to admit that it seems like the missing is becoming more prevolant again, but not nearly as bad as it was. I'm assuming that this is either because there is still a bad plug in the engine, or oil has now collected on the new plugs. Does this sound like a reasonable diagnosis, or am I overlooking something like a fuel injector, and my premium plugs just made it seem smoother for a while because of the change and now the real problem is resurfacing?
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