Baylinerchuck
Commander
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2016
- Messages
- 2,726
Problem solved, this thread is closed!!
I'm embarrassed to say that I totally ignored my own philosophy of troubleshooting, namely keep it simple stupid, or kiss. I post this embarrasment in hopes that it could help others out. When I changed the plug wires and cap and rotor out a while back I noticed that the cap had numbers on it referring to the firing order. One set of numbers for standard rotation, one for reverse. Apparently somewhere along the way I managed to swap plug wires for cylinder 2 and 6. In essence I was running on four cylinders.
I made this discovery by pulling one wire at a time off the distributer noting which ones caused a change in idle speed. After getting shocked a few times, (through an insulated pair of pliers and welding gloves), I found no noticeable change when pulling off wires 2 and 6. I swapped those wires since in reverse rotation they are opposite each other in timing order. The engine idle perked up slightly. I knew I was onto something.
I closed everything up and headed to the river. This thing ran like a raped ape. 4800 rpm and about 47 mph. I'm not sure how I could have overlooked something as basic as firing order. The good thing is everything I cleaned or changed thus far needed to be done on a 26 year old motor. I'm not sure what kind of maintenance has been done by the PO, but by the looks of it, not much.
Keep It Simple Stupid, a humbling lesson indeed.
Also, thanks to everyone who posted here trying help.
I'm embarrassed to say that I totally ignored my own philosophy of troubleshooting, namely keep it simple stupid, or kiss. I post this embarrasment in hopes that it could help others out. When I changed the plug wires and cap and rotor out a while back I noticed that the cap had numbers on it referring to the firing order. One set of numbers for standard rotation, one for reverse. Apparently somewhere along the way I managed to swap plug wires for cylinder 2 and 6. In essence I was running on four cylinders.
I made this discovery by pulling one wire at a time off the distributer noting which ones caused a change in idle speed. After getting shocked a few times, (through an insulated pair of pliers and welding gloves), I found no noticeable change when pulling off wires 2 and 6. I swapped those wires since in reverse rotation they are opposite each other in timing order. The engine idle perked up slightly. I knew I was onto something.
I closed everything up and headed to the river. This thing ran like a raped ape. 4800 rpm and about 47 mph. I'm not sure how I could have overlooked something as basic as firing order. The good thing is everything I cleaned or changed thus far needed to be done on a 26 year old motor. I'm not sure what kind of maintenance has been done by the PO, but by the looks of it, not much.
Keep It Simple Stupid, a humbling lesson indeed.
Also, thanks to everyone who posted here trying help.
