Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting What the heck is going on here?

My sisters 95 Contour 2.5 Duratech has started doing something strange.

She said their was a ticking/light knocking type noise coming from her engine compartment. So today I took a look and found that something odd.

The top of the spark plug boot for the front and center cylinder was making a wierd knock noise. If you put your finger on the top of the wires boot you could feel it pulsating with each knock sound. But if you touched the top of the other two front wire boots, you couldn't feel anything and they were completely silent.

It also kind of felt like the wires boot was not completely "snapped" onto the plug itself because it felt somewhat shaky and easy to move around. I tried pressing down hard to see if it would make the same "snap" as it did when I first installed the new wires but it wouldn't do it.

Anyways...I've never felt or heard this with any of my cars so I don't really know what could be wrong. I'm going to probably remove the wire and plug and do a full check because tonight I just did a quick inspection to see where the noise was coming from.

Does anyone know what's going on here?

THANKS!:)

I wonder if the spark plug itself has worked somewhat loose and when it fires it moves a bit because of that. I had a similar situation on another car and that was what it turned out to be. Also, some of the combustion gasses were escaping through the space caused by the plug being loose. It made a noise exactly like you described. That's my .02 worth....hope it helps. Let us know what you find.