Diary of a Wolfeman

The Little Black Beastie has been not only running poorly lately, it has complained about starting at random intervals, requiring up to three attempts before it fires. The sounds it has made while running led me to believe something may be up with the ignition circuit, so I picked up a set of spark plugs for it today.

Wouldn’t you know it, but the first plug wire I removed came apart in my hand, the crimped end pulled right off. Yay.

Plug 1 came out looking used, but otherwise clean. 2 and 3 came out really dirty and/or oil-covered, and number 4 came out a bit less dirty. Obviously time to replace them eh? Me being me, I was able to repair the first plug wire, but heat damage indicators plus the repair I had to make tell me it’s time for a new set very soon. I’m thinking something in a performance product this time. I’m not looking forward to this, though, since the last time took me most of an afternoon. This model’s distributor is actually a crank sensor mounted on the bottom side of the engine at the crankshaft, which means each plug wire has to be threaded through the restraints from the top front of the engine to the bottom rear of the engine, with me on a creeper. Not my idea of fun.

I also need to look into replacing the valve cover gasket, as that’s where it looks like most of the oil found on plugs 2 & 3 came from. This is a fairly easy job, so no big deal, provided the part isn’t expensive.

After that, though, comes the transmission service the poor Beastie needs. That is definitely going to be on the expensive side of the line…