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Not Good to Assume
Topic Started: Jan 24 2010, 01:00 AM (793 Views)
crispycritter
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Been fighting problems with my '98 for a while. Broken piston last summer. Rebuilt my spare motor and had another broken piston after about 2K miles. Radio reception was always poor too eventhough antenna was replaced and has a Pioneer supertuner.
Stuffed another piston in the "freshly broken" motor but had some cold weather flooding issues or would run on 2 cylinders until it warmed up a bit. Replaced the wires and already had Motorcraft Iridium plugs in it so gapped them down to .032.
Finally got around to installing the new distributor cap and rotor today and found that the "old" cap was on "upside down" !!! Never knew caps could go on either way and being odd # of cylinders this makes a difference!!!
Radio reception is much improved but motor does not run much different, maybe a little quieter. Was running it pretty hard before both piston failures. The distributor and "old" cap were on both motors when they broke. Gotta pay attention to the details
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Murf 59
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You had a dist. cap on backwards?
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starscream5000
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Got 70 MPG?

It's not possible to put mine on backwards, the one I have has a flat spot cut into it that will allow it to slide in the distributor only one way.
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Will
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Victory is mine!!!!

Sucks, but glad you got it figured out.
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mwebb
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FOG

i am standing beside myself ?

do you know what broke the piston yet ? do you suspect hydraulic lock from unburned fuel ?
related to the distributor cap thing ?

or choice C
you have not found the reason and it is going to happen again ....
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crispycritter
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All good questions, here's what i know...Bought the car August 2008. Drove it "as-is" off and on for about a year without much trouble, besides a few normal repairs getting used to a "new" vehicle. Trying to get good mileage and keep it running. Didn't break the first piston skirt until almost a year later and assumed it was because i was 'hot-rodding' it (revving it near the fuel cut-off for a ways).
Previous owner had apparently replaced the cap and rotor and put cap on backward (upside-down) by breaking off or defeating the "key" that only lets the cap go on ONE WAY. Still not sure what prevents this from happening, but was fortunate to have "caught" it because the "new" cap would go on either way too. This was a costly lesson, but most lessons are. Hope someone learns from this because as i said before, the symptoms were not all that obvious.
These motors will run with the caps on "stupid". Prove it for yourself.
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Murf 59
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I am not sure but it sounds like your talking about the rotor not the cap?? maybe
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crispycritter
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NO. The cap itself. Replaced the rotor also, at the same time. Both parts came from auto-zone. Boxes were labeled "Made in Japan"
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crispycritter
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Now i'm not so sure. Just compared to old parts and does not seem to add up. Will check into this further. Thanks for the input.
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