Anyone interested

A few months ago my step daughter was driving her/our "family" car (a whole story in and of it's self). She had to stay late at school and when it was time to go the 220DL wouldn't start... It sat there until the weekend (3 days) when I was able to get to it... Arrived with my tools, got in... it started right up and sounded ok. Huh, interesting. about a month later she went out to start it (in front of the house) and again it would not start. I asked her what might have been the same between the first time and the second, "the temperature, It was cold that night and in the morning also" OK, went online (to this board and others) and looked for what it might be. Most likely reason seemed to be moisture in the ignition system, either in the distributor or in/on the wires if they were bad. OK, the weekend came up, I went out to see what’s up. Nice day just after noon so cold would not be a problem (it was about 70 degrees out at the time) and no go... Turned over nice but no kick. OK, open the hood to look at the ignition wires... they looked alright, went to pull them off the plugs (one at a time) and, whoa, what’s this... this plug is loose- so is this one. and this one. Turns out all four were so loose I removed them with my fingers. That’s the problem... all I need is to put in new plugs and that should do it - But, since I am going to the store, lets see how the distributor cap and rotor are doing... grabbed the distributor cap to pry the springs off and... Wait, the whole distributor is loose, I freely moved it a good 20 or so degrees back and forth. I thought to myself 'That’s what the problem was.'

Then I removed the cap. You know the graphite spring loaded contactor that sticks down from the middle inside the cap? well it was out of the hole and laying on its side against the roof of the cap with a score mark about 1/16" deep around the center part of the rotor. NOW, I thought (one more time) Here is the problem. Quick trip to the parts store, bought new plugs, cap and rotor, came home, put them in and... nothing. Oh, sure it turned over fine, just like it did before but not even a hint of kick. Huh, look under the hood, wiggle things, smack other things, try again. Again nothing. This time however I did notice that there was something missing, I could not hear the fuel pump. Quick look over the fuses and none of them had the thin part broken, maybe the fuel pump. Into the trunk, pulled the trunk hole cover to look at wires, they looked ok (no critter teeth marks or the likes) I had just recently changed out the two fuel pumps of my Ford Ranger, only to find that the wiring harness had been at fault so before I started pump removal on the Volvo, I looked at things again. This time I got on my knees and rolled all the fuses... Wait a sec, this one has a problem, the open face 15 amp one had corroded through near one of the ends, it wasn't 'blown' but never the less it had failed. That’s ok, I had ONE spare in the glove box, got down, started to put it in and.. Those little suckers are slippery. It fell INSIDE the panel! well, a few expletives later, in desperation, I pulled the lower part away from the carpet and about 8 fuses fell out, two of the type I needed. Put one in, and the car started right up.

I found it amazing that the car ran with so many problems. It never missed, hesitated or anything, it got 30+ miles/gallon with all that wrong. Any one of those things would have been enough to stop a modern car. I think I will always remember the series of "Oh, THAT's why it's not running”, only to find that in fact it was only a fuse...Oh, and the plugs? They were in perfect condition when I looked at them

P.S. I bought the car about a year ago and had not done any maintenance on it until the above, I had however looked over and pulled/pushed/etc things when I bought it.. And as for the plugs being loose, the person who installed them last had NOT put the compression gaskets on the plug (they must have been Chevy owners) and heat and time had worked them loose.

Comments? Similar story? Please e-mail me since I don’t get back here often enough.

Evan

evanfain@yahoo.com