Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Misfiring and Tacking????

Well I've had intermitent problems w/misfires & tacking sounds, it comes and goes, but the other day it stuck around and hasn't disapeared. there was a blicking CEL, which from my understanding means a misfire. I haven't pulled any codes and stupid me, based upon my research or other related problems here on CEG I assumed the likelyhood of it being the coil pack, I replaced it with a used one, of course erasing the codes because I pulled the Neg., problem still there. Does Misfires cause the tapping, a local mechanic says that misfiring is one thing, tacking sound that's another problem and has no relation to anything electrical. Does anyone have any idea what could be the culprit here? I told him that the misfiring and the tacking both happen the same time, they don't happen seperately so theyy must be related.

Weird thing my car runs really strong, then I'll shut her off when I go to start her back up it runs rough than gradually disappears. If it misfires it'll do it at start up, of course now it won't go away.

Don't sound good dude.

Sounds like you may have dropped a valve. If you were having to crank on it to get it to turn over that may be timing jump, but this sounds internal.

Try isolating which cylinder is the culprit first. Pull each spark plug one at a time a see which one does not affect the "miss". Once identified, perform a compression check. Refer to Haynes Repair Manual chapter 2, if you dont have one...go get one you are going to need it.

Hope I am wrong here, but that is where I would start. I would not drive it anymore until you have done this.

If you are going to drive it one more time.. drive it to autozone, and have the codes pulled for free.

get the actual code NUMBERS.. not whatever "[censored] donny" (aka the autozone guy) tells you the description is. the ACTUAL numbers.

then park it.. and post. work from there.

Ray

Not sure what you mean by tacking? However freind of mines V-6 (95) had an arcing wire at one of the rear cylinders. Made a strange noise, combination of the mis-fire and arcing. It was arcing inside the tube of the head. Bad plug wire end, the long tube seats in the plug. Sorry brain lock can't get proper nomenclature for the wire end that terminates at the spark plug.

Paul

Cracked plug insulator or a wire arcing can cause a sound like a bad bearing (tapping or tacking sound). Open the hood at night with the engine running and look for sparks.

Check you plugs for cracks and check your plug wires and firing order.
jeff