Thanks to those of you who answered my question of a couple of weeks ago, about the unexplained miss in the 84 wagon. To recap: my sisters car started to miss. She told me I could have it if I wanted it. It was broke down about two hours from me.

It had a dead miss on number three hole.

I checked compression, all four holes were 210 psi cranking cold, and 185 hot.

I checked the plug wires for resistance, continuity, etc. They showed the 5K ohms that I think is normal.

I used a dummy spark plug and looked at the spark on each wire. All showed a nice blue spark.

I checked that the wires were in the proper order. they were.

I replaced the distributor cap and rotor.

I pulled the vc gasket and verified that the valves were operating properly.

I pulled the injectors and swapped them around, the miss stayed at number three hole.

I checked for vaccum leaks that could affect only one cylinder. none were obvious.

I had verified (or thought that I had verified), compression, spark, and fuel at each cylinder. After one more attempt to swap injectors to double check their operation, I damaged an o-ring and had to stop the diagnosing process.

I was able to get back to the car yesterday. After replacing the cut o-ring, I checked the injectors by using the long screwdriver as a stethoscope method. they were all clicking and stopped clicking as I pulled off the injector wire. Indicating to me that they were operating properly.

So now I had miss isolated in a cylinder that had good compression, was timed correct, had fuel, and had good spark. Or so I thought. After throwing my tools back into the box and walking away, I decided to think about it a little more, and I soon realized that the only thing that I had not swapped twice, was the plug wires.

So I swapped the wire and viola, the miss followed the wire.

It was the plug wire all along.

It tested good, or so I thought, it looked real good, It is a quality german made, wire that is proper for the car, and a previous owner stated that they were only about three years old. It would make a good spark when attached to a plug outside of the cylinder, it just wouldn't fire a plug under pressure.

I'm embarassed that it took me two sessions and three hours to find it, but I guess thats pretty cheap investment in the old girl. Even though she has 226K miles

Thanks again for the tips on checking the injectors with the stethoscope, and for the info about how the injection works.

Matt