hi all,

OK, so car was shimmying, bucking and not accelerating.... called my mechanic who suggests that i loosen spark plug wires from plugs while car is not running and un-touch plugs from wires one at a time to see which cylinders may not be getting spark. that goes OK, and 2 of them don't respond to the wires being removed, which tells me that something isn't right involving cylinders 2 & 4....

question 1- can spark plugs be bad even if they look OK? know-it-all boyfriend insists that since they looked good, the plugs must be fine.... i'm not so sure about that & would like a second opinion.


after all that was done, i'm checking out wires - they seem fine when tested against the good cylinders/plugs.....

here's the "i'm not sure if these things are related" part:
i disconnect battery, boyfriend removes cylinder cap to take a look at that....once everything is re-connected, battery appears to be drained and car won't start. before we removed cylinder cap, battery was fully charged and car started...an ran, but not well..., after cylinder cap replaced, no juice whatsoever......(power locks not working etc)....

is there any connection between the removal/replacement of the distributor cap and the battery draining? battery was totally dead within 10 minutes of cap being removed, and battery worked and seemed OK before the cap was removedt... i don't see any connection between removal of plugs and wires to the battery issue, especially since i've done that before with no problem. battery connections are clean and good.

know it all boyfriend also insists that doing something that killed the battery does not constitute "making the problem worse" - aargh!

anyway, if you could tell me if the dist' cap removal & dead battery are connected, or if some other component of the experiment caused the dead battery, that'd be great. strangely, i'm not so worried about the other stuff, it seems easier to figure out than the inexplicable (to me) dead battery.

(and boyfriend doesn't get to "help" me work on the car anymore" :)

thanks,

susan.


--
Emperor for Life - Leaky Volvo Club of America (LVCOA)