Car Troubleshooting: A Personal Experience with Misfires and Code Clearance

I'm having some car problems today, so I thought it would be a good idea to document my experience with misfires and code clearance. Yesterday, I started up my car and noticed that the engine was shaking. I suspected that I might have a misfire, so I drove to get the codes read. Sure enough, the codes indicated that I had a misfire in cylinders 3 and 4.

The mechanic recommended that I change out the plugs, wires, distributor cap, and rotor to fix the problem. I already had brand new plugs installed about 10 months ago, so I figured it was worth trying them again. I obtained the necessary parts and decided to replace them. First, I started by removing the distributor cap. There were three screws that held it in place: two at the top and one underneath. The screw underneath was a bit tricky to access, but my trusty socket wrench made it easier.

As I looked inside the distributor cap, I saw that the contact points for cylinders 3 and 4 had a white layer on them. This suggested that they might be dirty or worn out, which could be causing the misfire. The other contact points for cylinders 1 and 2 seemed to have a darker area, indicating that they were clean and free of issues. I decided to replace the distributor cap with a new one, hoping that it would solve the problem.

However, I soon encountered another issue: getting access to the screw that needed to be removed to take off the old capacitor. The screw was located in the back of the distributor cap, which made it difficult to reach. If I could have jacked up my car and turned the tires, I might have been able to rotate the distributor shaft and gain access to the screw. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option for me.

To solve this problem, I decided to simply replace the old capacitor with a new one. This would give me enough room to remove the old capacitor and install the new one. Once I had finished replacing the capacitor, I put everything back together in reverse order. Finally, I started up the car and took it for a spin.

To my relief, the engine ran smoothly, and there were no misfires. It seemed that the problem was indeed caused by the worn-out distributor cap. I was able to fix the issue without any further problems. Now that the engine is running properly, I can focus on getting back on the road.

As I continued with the repairs, I also decided to return the wires and old capacitor since they were no longer needed. The mechanic told me that it's illegal to clear codes, so they recommended waiting for the codes to clear on their own eventually. Fortunately, this happened while I was driving back home, and the check engine light went out.

The experience taught me the importance of regular maintenance and paying attention to any issues with my car. By addressing the problem promptly and taking steps to prevent similar issues in the future, I'm confident that I can keep my car running smoothly for a long time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone this video is going to be a little bit different than usual since I'm having some car problems so yesterday I started up my car and the engine was shaking so I figured I was having a misfire so I went and drove to get the codes read and I got the codes back and I was having a misfire in cylinders 3 and four so they recommended that I change out the plugs wires distributor cap and rotor so I've got brand new plugs that I had put in maybe 10 months ago so I got the rest of the items and I'm going to go ahead and replace those now and see what happens so I'm going to go ahead and start the car because I need to move it to a better spot so we'll see what happens when I do that that was actually a clean start no misfires it's running smooth all right well going to change the stuff anyways so here's what I'm going to be changing out I'm going to be changing out these wires um this distributor cap and then the distributor rotor inside so the important thing to remember is that we keep all these wires in the correct position on the distributor so that the engine cylinders fire in the correct order you screw up these uh wires here you'll have some big problems so so I'm going to go ahead and take off this distributor cap um so there's three screws two here at the top and then one under here which is kind of in a tricky place so it's kind of nice to just have a socket wrench to be able to get to it um and also these screws are pretty old so they'll probably strip I just use a screw driver pretty interesting I know so there's one there's two and there's the last screw so now we have a look inside all right looking in the distributor cap the spots for contact for three and four both kind of have this white layer on them the other spots for one and two seem to have a darker contact area so you can see on this new distributor cap how the contact areas are completely clean there's none of that white buildup on them so hopefully that's part of the problem so I've run into a small problem the screw I need to get at is in the back of this as you can see here on this new distributor cap and I can't take this off until I take this off so I can't get to that screw now if I could jack up my car I could just turn the tires and most likely that would be able to rotate this since it's geared with the cam shaft but I can't do that so what I'm going to do is replace this distributor cap start it back up and uh hope to have have luck on my side so remember the order of these wires is pretty important so I'm just going to do them one at a time and put them exactly where they go okay still very clean on the inside for all right so I'm going to go ahead and start up and uh hopefully no problems yet w didn't look like any problems didn't feel anything so I finally did get the distributor cap to a position where I could take it off uh you can see that little screw in there that has to be undone the thing is it's on there very tight and I'm just going to end up stripping it when I take it off but I have started and stopped the engine about I don't know eight times and it has not misfired at all um so I'm thinking the main problem was just this distributor cap here and hopefully it won't misfire anymore I would like to switch this cuz it does seem to have a little bit of wear on it here but just from constantly sending Sparks but I can't get it off and I'm not going to strip that screw and then never be able to get it off so I'm just going to leave it at that and the wires obviously work because it's been running so I don't think that was ever an issue so I'm not going to replace those so I just went to return the wires and also return that distributor rotor since I didn't use them and I was also going to see if I could get the codes cleared and see if they came back Well turns out it's illegal to clear codes apparently so they told me they couldn't do that and that the codes should clear on their own eventually fortunately while I was driving back home that happened so I've got the engine running now and the lovely check engine light is no longer illuminated so that's a good feeling $18hey everyone this video is going to be a little bit different than usual since I'm having some car problems so yesterday I started up my car and the engine was shaking so I figured I was having a misfire so I went and drove to get the codes read and I got the codes back and I was having a misfire in cylinders 3 and four so they recommended that I change out the plugs wires distributor cap and rotor so I've got brand new plugs that I had put in maybe 10 months ago so I got the rest of the items and I'm going to go ahead and replace those now and see what happens so I'm going to go ahead and start the car because I need to move it to a better spot so we'll see what happens when I do that that was actually a clean start no misfires it's running smooth all right well going to change the stuff anyways so here's what I'm going to be changing out I'm going to be changing out these wires um this distributor cap and then the distributor rotor inside so the important thing to remember is that we keep all these wires in the correct position on the distributor so that the engine cylinders fire in the correct order you screw up these uh wires here you'll have some big problems so so I'm going to go ahead and take off this distributor cap um so there's three screws two here at the top and then one under here which is kind of in a tricky place so it's kind of nice to just have a socket wrench to be able to get to it um and also these screws are pretty old so they'll probably strip I just use a screw driver pretty interesting I know so there's one there's two and there's the last screw so now we have a look inside all right looking in the distributor cap the spots for contact for three and four both kind of have this white layer on them the other spots for one and two seem to have a darker contact area so you can see on this new distributor cap how the contact areas are completely clean there's none of that white buildup on them so hopefully that's part of the problem so I've run into a small problem the screw I need to get at is in the back of this as you can see here on this new distributor cap and I can't take this off until I take this off so I can't get to that screw now if I could jack up my car I could just turn the tires and most likely that would be able to rotate this since it's geared with the cam shaft but I can't do that so what I'm going to do is replace this distributor cap start it back up and uh hope to have have luck on my side so remember the order of these wires is pretty important so I'm just going to do them one at a time and put them exactly where they go okay still very clean on the inside for all right so I'm going to go ahead and start up and uh hopefully no problems yet w didn't look like any problems didn't feel anything so I finally did get the distributor cap to a position where I could take it off uh you can see that little screw in there that has to be undone the thing is it's on there very tight and I'm just going to end up stripping it when I take it off but I have started and stopped the engine about I don't know eight times and it has not misfired at all um so I'm thinking the main problem was just this distributor cap here and hopefully it won't misfire anymore I would like to switch this cuz it does seem to have a little bit of wear on it here but just from constantly sending Sparks but I can't get it off and I'm not going to strip that screw and then never be able to get it off so I'm just going to leave it at that and the wires obviously work because it's been running so I don't think that was ever an issue so I'm not going to replace those so I just went to return the wires and also return that distributor rotor since I didn't use them and I was also going to see if I could get the codes cleared and see if they came back Well turns out it's illegal to clear codes apparently so they told me they couldn't do that and that the codes should clear on their own eventually fortunately while I was driving back home that happened so I've got the engine running now and the lovely check engine light is no longer illuminated so that's a good feeling $18\n"