Hose off now problems

[RiceeatingSHO]

Ok, I'm going down the road and all of a sudden a nice cloud of steam emits from my car...woohoo! I pull into mickeyd's and pop the hood, my radiator hose (top) has disconected itself from the radiator, effectively coating that side of the engine! no biggie, I go home, in another car, get some channellock pliers and put it back on, i crank it up and it's misfiring badly, multiple cylinders are down. Is this just an effect of me wetting thecoil pack? Will it dry out and be fine? Thanks yall.

 

[hawkeye18]

yep, that's probably exactly what you did. if you can get a can (or two) of air, I would go back to the car, take all the wires off the coil pack, and dry the connectors off nice 'n good. I would pull the front three wires off at the plug and dry them off as much as possible as well. Don't forget the 4-wire plug to the coil pack.

If it's still misfiring after that, I would pull codes and see if they come up with anything. I did this to my car once, only I was pressure-cleaning my engine bay with HP water and ended up having to replace the wires! Which you may have to do as well.

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

Ok, I may try WD-40. Thanks a bunch!

 

[hawkeye18]

uh... I didn't mean WD-40! I meant the canned air you get for cleaning computer parts... or better yet, compressed air out of a compressor. I would also recommend squirting a very healthy dose of dielectric grease in all plug wire connections. It does not matter how much you put in; the metal will still make contact. All the grease does is keep other stuff (i.e. water, coolant) out.

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

Ok, no WD-40, I knew you meant Air. That would have been my fault. I will give her a try as soon as I get a chance. Thanks again for the help. Would the WD-40 be problematic?

 

[hawkeye18]

WD-40 is conductive. You do not want conductive liquids (i.e. water) near high voltage parts. That causes, among other things, misfires...

 

[MD Ever]

WD-40 is conductive. You do not want conductive liquids (i.e. water) near high voltage parts. That causes, among other things, misfires...

Using WD-40 to dry out ignition parts is an old mechanic's trick. We used to use it to dry out a distributer cap and rotor. The WD-40 actually displaces moisture. I don't know how it would work or if it would cause any damage to a DIS though.

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

This is the coil pack, not the DIS.

 

[hawkeye18]

hmm, yeah, I guess WD does stand for Water Displacement, but still, i wouldn't want to leave any of that stuff in there, whether it be DIS (where you should also use dielectric grease) or a coil pack.

 

[St Louis SHO]

WD 40 works. I've used it. I've had no problems afterwords.

 

[projectSHO89]

Also, check the front (especially) plug wells for coolant. Some probably got into #2 and #3.

Steve

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

Ok, It has been 4 days now and it has dried out, I would think but it is still misfiring. The coil pack had the cover on it when all this happened.

 

[SHOZ123]

WD 40 is not conductive.

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

Ok, I blew al the boots/connectors on the coil pack out with the compressor and no change.

 

[hawkeye18]

you might have ruined a plug wire. You may have to change them.

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

Danggit, I just got new ones too... looks like Nitrous is just that much farther away.

 

[Electricat]

Ok, I blew al the boots/connectors on the coil pack out with the compressor and no change.

Did you check the front bank of plug wells for coolant, as Steve suggested?? Anything sprayed onto the valve covers tends to end up in the wells, and it doesn't take much to cause a misfire.

I had nearly the same scenario once...a bad misfire after a blown heater hose. Investigation found plenty of the green stuff in the rear bank of plug wells.

If you don't have access to an air hose, a rag pushed down into the wells with a thin screwdriver or something works ok to dry them out. Compressed air is much quicker, and more effective.

 

[hawkeye18]

I +1 that. Just make sure you have a paper towel or rag covering the top of the hole when you spray the air... otherwise you will find fluid in places you never knew possible. i.e. ear canal, etc.

 

[SHOZ123]

Coolant too is very hard to completely remove from the wires. Even when it evaporates it will leave a film that readily absorbs moisture out of the air and provide a path for electricity. It's best to either wash off with water then dry or use some water displacement type spray.

 

[RiceeatingSHO]

After more than 2 weeks of sitting, i finally got the money for new wires. I went to the store and realized i had the 5 year waranty *kicks self*. So today i go out to see which wire goes to which cylinder so i can take them off to return them. and BaNG! You ain't going to believe this. the rear middle cylinder was COMPLETEly unpluged! WHAt the HEcK! Plugged her in and she worked just fine!!!!! What caused this???? Sorry about the caps, my shift key is going haywire.