hi all,

my wagon is not running right now - it took a sudden, drastic turn for the worse on thursday night, and stopped running completely on saturday afternoon.

couple questions:
firing order of the plugs in the 83 B23F: i have it as 1, 3, 4, 2, but would like to confirm that.

also, correspondence to plug wire location on dist' cap: here's how i think of it:
plug wire for #1 is located at 4 o'clock
plug wire for #2 is located at 2 o'clock
plug wire for #3 is located at 10 o'clock
plug wire for #4 is located at 8 oclock

cylinders:
cylinder #1 is the front-most cylinder on the car, and the cylinders are numbered as 1-2-3-4 from front of car to back of car.

as of thursday night, car was bucking, shimmying and not accelerating very well, i.e. didn't want to go above 20MPH.... saturday i tested for spark and only got spark in 2 cylinders - ..... after a friend started messing around with the distributor cap, plugs, and wires, things got worse - the car totally died. once all the experimentation with plugs/wires was done, the engine was cranking but wouldn't start. after about 15 seconds at most of cranking engine, it stopped turning over and hasn't turned over since - idiot lights aren't coming on either. i disconnected the battery before messing with the distributor cap, and re-connected it snugly afterwards..... i know the battery has at least a little juice since the PWR door locks still work.(hooray for small blessings, eh?)

so, battery seemed dead, which is weird since it is a 2-month old battery. as of 10pm sunday night, my power door locks work, but nothing else does - this sucks. i couldn't figure out if there's a connection between the spark plug/distributor stuff and the battery suddenly quitting - very peculiar.

if you have any theories, please feel free. i'm mainly interested in double-checking the plugs/wires/distributor info right now, so the firing order/distributor cap info is my main concern, but appreciate any bonus info that's out there. (my mechanic will read me the riot act if i come in there with my wires crossed or something stupid like that)

one weird detail: my cabin interior light NEVER comes on when the doors are opened, but on this fateful thursday night, just before things started to go crazy, the interior lights came on as I opened the back passenger door (!?). (cargo area light always works, but the front interior light never has since i've had the car). I did notice that and definitely knew it was weird, and the next time i started the car after noticing that (about an hour later), that's when the performance was drastically changed for the worse.

thanks for your help, especially firing order/ spark plug wire to distributor stuff, and everything else that i've been taught over the years. j

-susan.

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