97 Astro, new dist. cap & rotor, no spark at dist cap output

[dniemeye]

I don't know why the message text didn't get in there, here it is again:

My 97 Astro died without warning. Acted like no spark, smelled gas a little. So I opened up engine compartment, saw good spark at coil wire but got no spark coming out of dist cap. Concluded it was a bad dist cap or rotor. Replaced both with Borg Warner. Still same problem. Good spark goes into the dist cap, no spark comes out of any of the 6 outputs, tested with a wire attached to cap, no spark!!!! I'm thinking maybe the timing got off so far that it's trying to spark exactly when the rotor is in between one of the tabs in the cap, or something.... Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Dave

[dniemeye]

Fixed it! Like I read somewhere here, one of the Astro's flaws is a badly placed transmission filler tube that travels right next to the dist. cap, grounding out the coil wire or one of the plug wires. In this case, I had good spark when testing the coil wire, detached from the dist. cap. But when plugged in, it grounded itself where it crossed that metal tube. Would have never guess that except that I read that possibility here. Good thing I read stuff here in this forum!!!!!!!!! I'll replace wires and add some insulation there.
Dave