Hi All, Just joined, looks like a great forum.

Was running good, just leaking coolant. Did the intake coolant fix, put dist in wrong and wouldn't fire up. Came on here and found the edi timing thread. Pulled dist and followed the instructions. Put back in and it fired up but it soulds like I got a skip like one cyl not firing. Don't have any equipment for electronic diagnostics.

Not sure of steps to find current problem since truck ran good before.

First question-

Pretty sure I got #1 on compression stroke. If I got it on the wrong stroke, would it start up and run?

Right now it runs ok, but when loaded up, feel a skip. I don't want to pull dist again if I don't have to.

I marked wires so don't think they're crossed. maybe one is not in good enough in the cap or broke?

Looking for advice on how to diagnose. Good news is, I let warm up and leak is gone!

Thanks ,Jeff

 

It wouldn't run if you put it in 180* out.

Have you made sure that the wires are not grounding out and that they are fully seated on to both the terminals at the cap as well as onto the spark plugs?

 

Thanks, I thought that but wanted confirmation from someone more knowledgeable.

I'll check to make sure they are seating deep into the cap. How can you tell if they are grounding out?

Thanks ,Jeff

 

Spray bottle of water. Run the engine at night and mist down the wires to see if there is spark escaping the wires.

 

great, thanks

 

well looks like wires are seated good. Got some small sparking from the top of the cap when I revved it up. Also the main body of the coil seemed to glow some when I revved it. I'll get a cap and rotor. You think I need the coil also?

 

I replaced cap and rotor and it still skips bad under load. What do you think about the coil glowing a little at night? Should I try to replace that? I hate just replacing parts.

I guess you can't adjust timing on these engines. Could it be one tooth off in the dist? It sure looked like it line up well to that pointer when I adjusted the oil pump so it dropped in per those edi timing instructions.

 

I think it will compensate for a few teeth off itself, Im pretty sure the coil shouldnt glow at night though that would seem to show a failure of the insulation on it.

 

You can have the coil tested. Did you see any sparks jumping out of the wires to the engine/chassis?

The only way to tell if it is correct is to realign the crank to the timing marks on the front cover and then check to see if the rotor is aligned with the '6' on the base of the distributor.

BTW, you don't need to PM me. I'll get to your thread when I can.

 

Well I checked the timing again and it's right on. Decided to change spark plug wires since they've havent been done since I've owned it. Still has skip. Started pulling wires from cap and 5 and 3 made it worse, #1 seemed to not make it worse so put in new plug, still is rough running thou. Not sure what else to do. Service engine light is on now so I guess I should just read code.