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Occasional Misfire


1989Buickguy
01-20-2004, 09:38 AM
I was having this problem with the Buick where every once in a while it would stagger like the cylinders were crossfiring or something. So over the weekend I put new wires and plugs in it and new air filter. Old wires were pretty beat. It ran ok for a while, but now the misfire has returned. Seems to do it only when in OD and going around 45-55 up a hill or something along those lines. Could this be a fuel delivery problem? When you downshift to increase the RPMs it goes away. Or maybe is this a coil problem? It has the type 1 coil, not the individual coil packs on it. If the motor was starving for gas, wouldn't it get worse when the RPMs increase?

Thanks for any input. By the way, the heater seems to be behaving itself now for some reason.

Car is 89 LeSabre with 116K miles.

1989Buickguy
01-21-2004, 01:45 PM
Could this problem be related to the torque convertor lockup?

HannabilRox
03-16-2004, 11:00 AM
Sounds exactly like the problem I am having with my 90 LeSabre, which I am going to post here soon. I have the 3800 engine with 70,000 miles on it, and it has done this since I bought the car last July. Mine will run like that in idle, so I was able to troubleshoot with the car in drive and the emergency brake on. I removed each injector wire one by one until I found the cylinder that made no difference in RPM when removing the wire, which lo and behold, was cylinder #1. I connected a NOID to the injector wire and found that when I first start the car, I get the electronic signal to the injector for a few seconds, then it goes out. It will mysteriously come back on then off again randomly. I have traced the wiring back to the firewall and have found no problems. Keep an eye on my posts about this problem. I will post the resolution when I find it. Right now I think it may be the ECM. I have another one I can connect, but haven't had the time yet to do that.

1989Buickguy
03-16-2004, 11:33 AM
Well, it turned out that my problem was due to the torque convertor locking up because I unplugged the lockup and it hasn't done it ever since. So it gets just a little bit worse gas mileage, around 20 MPG.

buickmastermind
10-10-2004, 10:53 PM
I could live with the lockup problem, as opposed to bag gas mileage. Leave it on, and replace it at some point here.

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