Bucking Galant

[mikelbeck]

Hey Everybody -

My wife has a 2000 Galant with the 2.4L SOHC engine. Every few months it starts stumbling from a standing start, after getting up to about 20 MPH it smooths out. When that happens I change the plugs and it's fine for a few months. The old plugs always have oil on them so I just assumed the rings were weak and threw in a can of Renew or similar and that seemed to hold it.

However... I changed the plugs the other day and it was much much worse then normal. From a start it would stumble and buck, only smoothing out at around 40 MPH and then would start vibrating like crazy at 50 MPH. A mechanic friend of mine suggested that the valve cover gasket was leaking oil into the plug tubes and I should change that and that would fix "all my problems". So I changed it this afternoon, the old seals that go on top of the spark plug tubes were dried out and cracked. With this new gasket it's much better, it's only stumbling from a start once in a while. Now, I'm wondering if there's still some oil sitting in those plug tubes and if it's eventually burn off or leak down into the cylinder? I'm assuming when that happens it'll smooth out again and might fix this problem for good.

Any suggestions or comments?

[reiketsutsukigami]

if the oils in the cylinders it will burn out youll notice some blueish smoke in the exhaust if its going into the plug tubes then you should clean them out.

[mikelbeck]

I drove it to work this morning, it was stumbling a bit when it was cold but got better once it warmed up. I ran it for a little while before driving and didn't see any smoke from the exhaust.

I was thinking that since there had been oil leaking into the plug tubes the wires are probably oil-soaked and may be causing a misfire. I had a look at AutoZone's web site for a new wire set but it looks like they sell them in pieces - the 2 non-coil pack wires and then the coil plug wires individually. Any idea what's involved in changing the coil pack wires? Do they just pop off or what?

[Conjee]

They pop off, give it a nice pull.

[mikelbeck]

They pop off, give it a nice pull.

Cool, thanks.

Any suggestions as to what else may be causing these problems or am I headed in the right direction?

[DTP]

I would have the valve seal gaskets changed ( i think i got the name right.)

I had the same problem, and that fixed it.

Any check engine lights?

[mikelbeck]

I would have the valve seal gaskets changed ( i think i got the name right.)

I had the same problem, and that fixed it.

Any check engine lights?

Are you talking about valve seals (on the vales) or the valve cover seals (on the top of the spark plug tube)? I changed the valve cover seals yesterday when I changed the valve cover gasket. Changing the valve seals is a much bigger job. But if the valve seals were leaking then there would be oil on the bottom of the spark plug (the thread and electrode side), I'm seeing oil on the top of the plugs (insulator). Plus there's no smoke from the exhaust, I would expect that if the valve seals were leaking.

When it starts doing the stumbling thing the check engine light comes on. I checked it with an ODB-II reader and it said that cylinder #2 was misfiring.

[DTP]

Hmm... That's a tough one. The oil in my case was on the electrode side. There's definitely a seal/gasket leaking. I'll go take a look under my hood to see what I can come up with.

Oil leaking onto the spark plugs would cause it to misfire, especially under full throttle.

[jubeiaire]

1999-2007 Mitsubishi Galant Spark Plug Tube Seal Set - Felpro .......thats what you need to keep oil out of the spark plug housing tube if the oil is on th etop end--Plug to wires side-the set ranges from $15-$40 depending on where and brand

[mikelbeck]

1999-2007 Mitsubishi Galant Spark Plug Tube Seal Set - Felpro .......thats what you need to keep oil out of the spark plug housing tube if the oil is on th etop end--Plug to wires side-the set ranges from $15-$40 depending on where and brand

The FelPro kit that I picked up yesterday had the valve cover gasket plus 4 tube seals.

The wireset that I see on AutoZone.com is in 2 pieces, 2 non coil pack wires, then the coil pack wires sold individually. So it looks like $57 for all 4. I'll check around some of the other local parts stores to see if they've got it as a whole set and maybe cheaper.

[jubeiaire]

the wires and coilpackwires dont keep the oil out. you should replace them if they got messed up by the oil or wear and tear. Its the tube seals that keep the oil from the valve cover out of the spark plug housing. the rubber sealing built into the wires and coilpack wires is to keep water and debri that makes its way into your engine compartment from getting into the spark plug housing. if you replace your tube seals and valve cover gasket and your still getting oil in your spark plug housing but no oil on the igniting tips of the spark plugs you might have a damaged valve cover.

[reiketsutsukigami]

ive heard of a few people having to get new coilpacks cause their galants were doing similar things and it was a sign the coil packs were goin bad if changing the wires and plugs doesnt fix it you could try this next.

[jubeiaire]

ive heard of a few people having to get new coilpacks cause their galants were doing similar things and it was a sign the coil packs were goin bad if changing the wires and plugs doesnt fix it you could try this next.

Im not sure what your referring to but i wanna make sure your not saying the coil pack is leaking the oil because there is no oil in the coil pack or being fed into it. those that replaced their coilpacks due to leaking oil did so because the oil went past the shaft area and into the pack itself destroying the pack.

[mikelbeck]

I think reiketsutsukigami was talking about the stumbling problem, not oil in the coil packs.

I'm thinking that maybe I wasn't totally clear on my issue, so let me re-cap:

The car was stumbling every once in a while. When that happened I'd change the plugs and it would be good for a couple of months.
I changed the plugs the other day and the stumbling got worse.
Mechanic friend suggested changing the valve cover gasket as the plugs had lots of oil on the insulator part. When I changed the valve cover gasket I also changed the spark plug tube seals.
Driving the car to work today it was better than it was the other day but still stumbling once in a while. Now I'm wondering if there's some old oil down in the spark plug tubes that could be causing this, or maybe the plug wires were saturated with oil and are now no good. I haven't checked the plug tubes yet today cuz I'm at work so I don't know if there's any new oil in there.

So the questions are...

Should I change the plug wires?
If that doesn't help, what's next? The coil packs?

[mrg7243]

well cylinder two is a coil pack not a wire, so start by replaceing your coil packs, dont worry about the wires cause the wires fire for cylinder 1 and 3, cylinder two and 4 is a coilpack are you burning any fluids???

[mikelbeck]

It's not burning any fluids. Oil level stays consistent and there's no smoke from the tailpipe. Considering it's got a little over 100k miles I'd say that's pretty good. ;-)

I was hoping I wouldn't have to replace the coil packs, they're about $75 each here. Would I need to do both of them or could I just replace the one on the #2 cylinder?

[mrg7243]

It's not burning any fluids. Oil level stays consistent and there's no smoke from the tailpipe. Considering it's got a little over 100k miles I'd say that's pretty good. ;-)

I was hoping I wouldn't have to replace the coil packs, they're about $75 each here. Would I need to do both of them or could I just replace the one on the #2 cylinder?

what about coolant?? cause i had the same problem and had a blown headgasket, try a junkyard or ebay. coil packs usaully dont go bad too often. rockauto too they have great prices

[mikelbeck]

I decided to swap out the coil pack on cylinder #2 (the one that was reported in the check engine code) and it's running like a brand new car now. No stumbling, no hesitation, no problems at all. So I guess that was it.

I'm gonna check the old coil anyway to see what the problem was and will post it back here so if anybody comes across the same thing they'll have an idea of where to look.

[warup89]

this was great read, good to know everything turned out OK.

-btw change that old coil before it goes kaput.

[mikelbeck]

this was great read, good to know everything turned out OK.

-btw change that old coil before it goes kaput.

Yeah, I will. I spent much more than I expected to on this already, gonna have to wait until next month.

[mikelbeck]

I took the old coil pack to AutoZone and asked them to test it, they had a hard time getting any reading at all but were finally able to get a resistance of only about 4k ohms where it should be 8.5k-11.5k.

BTW the car has been running great ever since changing out the coilpack on the #2 cylinder. Thanks everybody for the help with this.