we have a 1981 lincoln town car. Original owner with 149000 miles. It runs very rough in damp and cold weather. Our mechanic took out the wires and put them in a tank of water and said they are fine. Some type of “butterfly” maybe in the carburetor is okay. He put in a new high crank for cold weather battery. The plugs are supposedly a year old. The transmission is not shifting properly. It is a replacement about 10 years old. My husband calls it the “suicide car” because it stalls and chugs along for about a half hour before it starts running better. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks for any help.
What about the distributor cap and rotor? Moisture in the cap can cause these mis-fires as well. Also, these generation Fords also have questionable ignition modules, a grey box located on the front of the distributor with a wire connector on it.
One mechanic took out the wires and put them in a tank of water and said they are fine??
EH? Were they dirty?
I sure hope you went elsewhere after that one.
Does this car, by chance, have a 302 V8 with a carburetor?
Either your mechanic is doing some odd things or something is being lost in the translation.
If he pulled the plug wires off and put them in a tank of water (why???) then find another shop quickly.
Unless the fuel system has been modified or the engine changed this car should have CFI injection on it. This means a cross-breed throttle body/semi carb type of setup. It’s fuel injection with a choke assembly, pull-off diaphragm, etc.
Your rough running problem is more than likely going to have something to do with the throttle body itself, any throttle body controls, or either a clogged fuel filter/weak fuel pump.
It’s also not simply a matter of faulty plug wires. In damp weather condensation can form inside of the distributor cap. One would hope that checking the inside of the cap for moisture would have been done since this only takes a few seconds.
Well, if he held the two ends of the plug-wires out of the water and then used an ohmmeter the check continuity between the ends of the wires and the water, that would be an effective way to test them. Seems a little odd, but I wouldn’t condemn him based on it.
I wanted to thank everyone for their comments. It was the distributor cap. No more problems since it was replaced.