1990 745 16v 137k miles


ok..
here's the whole story;
today I filled up and ran through the car wash. While in the car wash very suddenly my car starts missing very badly later determined to be cyl. #1&3 missing totally. Well I imediately examined the situation and found that I had left my fuel door open and my gas cap only tightened about half way (I hate cel phones.).
At that point I drove the car about 1/4 mile and dumped 2 bottles of STP's #1and 3 were missing out, kindof strange for water in the gas. My father checked spark and it was very weak, only about 1/16 of an inch long and version of heat in the tank (now full).
I really don't think that there's water in the tank, if so not much. only orange/yellow, definitely not blue. My father suspected a hot coil getting weak (don't laugh) so we took the coil and soaked in a creek for about 10 minutes for it to cool off and then reinstalled. No change still missed, weak spark. Using the kind of skills you can't read in a manual, he removed plug from #1 closed gap a little and it got me home.
I ordered another coil from autozone for $60.
haven't gotten it yet.

is it normal for volvo coils to be weak like that?
any thoughts?
I changed rotor and dist. cap about a month ago.
I've never touched the wires. they have at least 30k on them.

BTW this is the same 16 valve that's been bothering brickboarders for a while with check engine lights.

sorry for the long post.