Just wanted to tell you all I picked up a set of wires, replaced the cracked and broken insulators [2] and re timed it. I feel pretty stupid...that was the problem all along! I guess the problem was arcing to the heads causing bad spark.

I learned the hard way.... the old saying....is it plugged in?

In any event it's 65 or so outside, the top is off and it's time to drive

Cool man, it's nice when it's something simple and you finally firgure it out.

So were these wire new with the rebuild?

Amazing how many mystery problems are caused by wires...

I just replace them as one of the first steps now...

Have a Vanagon that ran great when cold, and every morning would start bucking at the exact same spot on the way into work. Ran crappy all the rest of the way intp work. Looked at and measured everything, and thought it was a the FI computer. The engine started crapping at about the correct time for the FI to switch from cold engine to hot engine settings.

Measured the plug wires cold and they were always OK. One frustrating day, I measured them hot (after passing the magic spot) and found one wire was an insulator with no conduction. Took about 5 minutes to go from a conductor to a non-conductor....

Moral of the story, $80.00 Bosch special wire set was cheep compared to the time/trouble spent finding the problem.

Ken

QUOTE (Rhodes71/914 @ Mar 19 2005, 12:36 PM)

Cool man, it's nice when it's something simple and you finally firgure it out. So were these wire new with the rebuild?

New just prior. I broke one or two when checking the compression [hot] but didn't realize they would cause such a noticable difference. I bought a new set which had the wrong legnths so I replaced thre bad insulators and blamo...problem sloved.

Yeah when mine starts running rough, I look at the spark plug wire ends. And into the distributor cap,sometimes there is a green corosion in there. Usually fixes things right up.

QUOTE (elwood-914 @ Mar 20 2005, 08:09 AM)

Yeah when mine starts running rough, I look at the spark plug wire ends. And into the distributor cap,sometimes there is a green corosion in there. Usually fixes things right up.

Thing is they take a lot of abuse from the heat. It's best to scheck them regurlarly and when removing the ends be VERY CAREFUL or the break like candy.

Anyone know of a more durable set? I have Behr and they are well designed but brittle as hell. Also some sets have two long insulators . Aside from the deeper location of those plugs realtive to the tin is there another reason for this?

Come to think of it I always had an extra set of wires in my 74 vw bus when doing long trips.
I think I've broken a few in the past

QUOTE

. Aside from the deeper location of those plugs realtive to the tin is there another reason for this?

That i the reason I always thought.