Car idles indefinetly then stalls upon trying to move

Earlier this week I discovered my ignition switch was shot (my car wasn't staying in "on" mode) so I took at all apart cleaned it up all the contacts inside it and now its working just fine.

So today I use my car again for the first time and drive a few miles, go in a store and then on the way back the car just dies as I'm driving. I manage to get it into a parking lot and spend 15 min off and on cranking away to try to start it.

All of a sudden it finally starts and idles (very slightly rough) until i try to drive around and it sputters a little bit while I jerk around and it dies again. I have discovered the car will run indefinitely while idling but as soon as I try to drive it jerks around a bit and dies eventually.

I don't think this is related to my ignition switch (the car remains 'on' in which it didn't before). The first thing that popped into my head was fuel filter however its been replaced within the last 10k miles. Anyone else have any ideas, it seems I fix one problem and another one sprouts right up!!

are you getting any codes? check it.
check the spark plugs, and distributor cap and rotor.
also, you may want to check your engine compression.

Yeah, sorry forgot to mention not getting any codes at all, ill have to check the cap and rotor at least (unfortunately I'm at school and don't have many tools at all) anything else on the duh list anyone can thing of.

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Originally Posted by johnwc723

Yeah, sorry forgot to mention not getting any codes at all, ill have to check the cap and rotor at least (unfortunately I'm at school and don't have many tools at all) anything else on the duh list anyone can thing of.

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is it wet out? thinking it could be moisture under your distributor cap.
Also - if it's a carb they have 2 fuel filters.
Be careful when cranking the starter - don't want to run startedfor more that 10 sec at atime and allow a couple minutes between trys - you can over-heat the starter and wires.
Check your timing - maybe you skipped a tooth on your timing belt?

Perhaps it could be the moisture, I drove through a puddle or two but thats never been a problem before, well anyways I go to try to start it today and I managed to get it started instantly and drove it home without any problem, and it seemed to be running just fine :huh:.

Usually I wouldn't really worry about this too much but unfortunately I have to drive 180 miles home next weekend so I don't want to get stranded. I'm hard pressed to figure out what might cause this sort of intermittent failure, should I worry about it happening again?

Sounds like that puddle made water get into the cap. I would still pull it off and inspect it, wouldn't hurt to anyways.