No Spark, No Start

[stuntjunkie199]

I've got a little (hopefully) electrical/ignition problem that I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. First I think it would be helpful to provide the background to the situation.

About a week ago I cranked the car in the morning, it was fairly cold but still the car cranked fine and idled good so I started off. About a mile down the road I noticed and pretty pronounced miss and it didn't go away no matter what I did. In fact it seemed to get harder and harder until eventually I was trying to figure out where I could park the car. I had to be somewhere so I drove the car about 10 miles with this awful miss. Come to find out a plug wire had broke so I was literally running on three cylinders. I slapped new plugs and wires on it and went about my business. It run fairly well but still had a small RANDOM miss but definitely not undriveable.

Fast forward a week, last night I was driving down the freeway, car was running perfect. The miss had disappeared completely until I was setting in a drive through and I felt it came back. Drove the car a little bit farther (2-3 miles) and I lost all power. The miss was horrible and I was topped out at 45mph wide open. I came to a hill and she just wouldn't climb it even downshifting. I shoved in the clutch and it died completely. I tried starting it back up and it would hit but the idle was so rough you had to rev it to keep it above 300 rpms. Even still it didn't have enough power to even pull out. So far I've put a new coil on it and a rotor button. Tried to fool with it today and it won't even hit. It cranks just won't start. I'm getting fuel for sure the plugs are wet. However, I'm only getting spark in the #4 cylinder plug wire. The rest have zero spark.

Dizzy cap? Jumped time? Any help appreciated. 89 LXi by the way. 231,000 miles

[86km]

Any oil leaks around the dist? Take it off if you must, replace the o ring and clean the unit out. All what your saying sounds like a bad dizzy to me

[Dr_Snooz]

Have you checked your timing belt?

[stuntjunkie199]

86km I have only had the cap, rotor, and dust guard off. I've kindly been waiting to see what a new cap will do when the parts store finally gets one in. If that doesn't work I guess I'll be looking for a good used unit. Dr_Snooz, I checked it last around 7k miles ago and it looked good. I haven't had a chance to take the cover off since this has happened. How can I check if it has jumped time without taking too many parts off?

[86km]

Put the engine at tdc then remove the top timing belt cover and inspect the line up of the flywheel, dist rotor pointing to #1, cam sprocket line up with the head last. Not much to it

[Dr_Snooz]

^^^What he said.

[G. White]

I once had an ignition coil go bad on me and do funny things. At first I thought it was a fuel pump because the car missed and jerked so bad. I was getting spark to only 1 cylinder but it was weak. I swapped it out and was good to go. Also, another thing to consider is the ignition control module. It's under the silver cover on the distributor. It ends up absorbing the heat from the distributor for many years and eventually becomes cooked. Just some ideas---hope it helps, please keep us posted!

[stuntjunkie199]

Thanks for the suggestion G. White. I have replaced the ignition coil but no luck. Now the ignition control module, there any way to test that? Aren't that and the igniter the same thing?

[Dr_Snooz]

The igniter is the ICM and I have no idea how to test one.

[3gmodifier]

i went through hell trying to figure out why my first 3g wouldnt start and eventually determined it was the igniter. its that flat square looking module on the front lower side of the dizzy. there is a plate that holds it down held by 2 screws. they can be a bitch to remove so take your time so u dont strip

[stuntjunkie199]

Good news guys, got the new distributor cap on today and she fired right up. I really didn't think that was it so I was surprised. How does a cap just go bad while driving- to the point where it wouldn't even start?

[Oldblueaccord]

if the inside terminal are worn bad it could. I would look to make sure your distributor shaft is not wobbling to bad or that cap wont last long either.

[stuntjunkie199]

I checked the play of the distributor shaft because I too had kind of thought that may be wearing the cap but it had very little play. Is any at all too much? It was pretty minor so I'm just wondering what the tolerance is. Also it may be worth noting that I believe the bad cap to be original. (24 years old). I guess since it is a maintenence item it could have failed due to age and be unrelated to the distributor itself, thoughts?

[86km]

Good to hear it runs! Cheap easy too