'97 Plymouth Voyager 3.0L- There's no spark from the distributor for cyls 1 & 4. Replaced plugs, plug wires and distributor cap to validate there no discharge out of the distributor for those two cylinders, which, of course, are signaled from the same location of the crankshaft/flexplate. A bare wire stuck in those sockets does not spark to ground.

Some critter ate the insulation and wire from the crankshaft sensor, (along with a sparkplug wire). O2 sensor wires were eaten a few years ago, too. In the effort to replace the crankshaft sensor, the old one was frozen into the bellhousing & it snapped off nearly flush with the housing. Salt from Michigan winters can be really diabolical! After hours of dentist-like grinding via mirror (destroyed one new anglegrinder, too), and a halfpint of penetrant, the sensor remnant was finally broken loose with a screwdriver and extracted. Never was there any force driving anything inwards, always twisting and pulling out.

The new sensor was installed with a layer of masking tape, measuring about .006". No spark on 1 &4. Somewhere, I read, the gap should ideally be about .035". So after 5 layers of masking tape, .030" and still no spark on 1 & 4.

I stuck my finger into the orifice while a friend rotated the crank and there's no obvious variation on the the ring/holes. Tomorrow, I'll plug in the OBDII tester which will probably not shed any light on the subject. Also will try to view the ring/holes with a borescope, but that also, won't lead any new clues.

I dragged out 3 junky oscilloscopes to try to view the wave pattern, but 2 are going into the scrap heap, and the only functional one couldn't display a stationary display with idle hunting up and down.

Anyone experience anything like this and resolved it?

 

If you browse the forum here regarding problems with that engine over the years, you'll probably find that the distributor seems to be the source of most of those problems.

 

Old mechanics trick -- observe the distributor with engine running in the dark and look for "tracking". This is a discharge which looks like minature lightning along a carbonated track. It shorts the spark voltage to ground leaving nothing for the spark-plug.

Leedsman.

 

r get a spark tester and plug it inline to a spark plug and wire.

 

The el cheapo crankshaft sensor procured from ebay, was the problem. Tapping into the wires with a voltmeter showed only one long voltage drop across the four spaces on the ring, for cylinders 1 & 4, but showed the proper 4 discrete signals for the other cylinders. Replacing it with a good sensor resolved the issue.

The defective sensor had no brand name/identification on the ebay auction. I did a little background check on other sensors and procured a "Standard Motor Products" brand sensor after finding they are an OEM supplier and also service the aftermarket under the popular name, "BWD." It came off ebay, also, at about half the price of the local box stores.