3.1 1990 Lumina Spark Plug and Wire replacement went bad

[smithp5]

Changed spark plugs and wires in 1990 lumina by rocking the engine back and forth and setting the emergency break in order to get to the back ones. Got the firing order from the auto store:
1 3 5
2 4 6

1-2-3-4-5-6

Car cranked and turned over fine before changing spark plugs and wires. Please reply ASAP, I have to somehow get to work now!

[jeffcoslacker]

OK, mine is a '97, the cylinders are numbered like this: (looking from front of car)

1 3 5
2 4 6

The wires go to the coils like this:

2 | 6 | 1
5 | 3 | 4

Hope this is of some use.

Your is DIS, right?

[Fireplug]

On the front of the hood or by the rad should be a tag with the coils showing what cylinder that they fire

[Kooterskkar]

coil order goes from left to right 1 4 6 3 2 5

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by Kooterskkar

coil order goes from left to right 1 4 6 3 2 5

Is that because of the placement of the coils on his year? 'Cause mine run exactly the opposite.

[KenInKenmore]

little tip.... look into buying a chiltons book for your car, NOT A HAYNES... the Haynes deosn't go into enough detail.. trust me for info on your car it's the best 20$ you can spend.. it tells you anything you need to know including your firing order

[richtazz]

I'm assuming Chilton's have improved over the years, because I bought a Chilton's for my old 85 S-blazer a few years ago, and it didn't even acknowledge the front axle assembly for the 4-wheel drive. Not even the axle nut spec, so I've never bought another Chilton's since.

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by richtazz

I'm assuming Chilton's have improved over the years, because I bought a Chilton's for my old 85 S-blazer a few years ago, and it didn't even acknowledge the front axle assembly for the 4-wheel drive. Not even the axle nut spec, so I've never bought another Chilton's since.

My experience with Haynes has been mostly through motorcycle repair, but I've found that the ones I've used were based on a complete teardown and re-assembly of the major components of the vehicle (engine, trans, axles, etc), so that if you were just wanting to repair a certain component, you had to weed through all the steps that were not neccessary to replace the item in question. Like to do a valve adjustment, you had to read the entire section on head disassembly and rebuild, just to get to the part where during reassembly, a valve adjustment was performed, or to replace a CV axle, you had to read the entire section on front suspension and related component teardown.. And the descriptions of the procedures always assumed that the component was already in a state of teardown (i.e. engine removed from frame/chassis) so the description of the procedure was useless to the novice trying to service a part on an intact vehicle, as it did not describe how to gain access, etc. The Chilton's manuals that you get from AZ might be similar, I've always used the big, hard bound actual shop manuals produced by Chilton's. They have step by step procedures for almost all components individually.

What you said about the Blazer reminded me, sometimes on certain vehicles to get info about a system that was considered optional, but common to several product lines, you had to purchase a special volume devoted solely to that system.

[dwalmop]

I've got the large 2 1/2 thick shop manuals for 88-93 and also 95-99 General motors. excellent manuals; very expensive. Only thing I've noticed they've been unclear about is how to bleed coolant systems. The first major engine repair I ever completed was replacing head gaskets on a 3.1L cavalier, and it took me through completely step by step. An idiot with no experience could have done it.

[richtazz]

The funny thing about my Blazer experience, the cover of the book showed my exact model, with a cutaway view showing the front end and engine of a 4x4 model, yet inside the book, it had no mention of the procedures to remove/install any of the components shown on the cover, sheesh!!!!!