[NOBBC] Any thoughts on a starting issue?

[Mitch Utsey]

Take a spray bottle that atomizes well. Take the car into a dark area
(or at night). When you first fire up the car, spray the finely
atomized water around the spark plug wires and the distributor cap.
This will show if the wires are discharging via weakness in the
shielding as the spark will jump across the water droplets.

The "Waterbottle spraying on exhaust manifold" will show non-firing
cylinders, but don't do that to a really hot engine, as the sound that
cast iron makes when it cracks is quite..... frustrating. But you
should be safe if you do it within a minute or two of firing up the
engine.

All of that being said, my first thought was "Sticky Valves", but as
that is actually kind of rare in an engine that actually runs, I'd
lean towards the "Head Gasket" folks, but spark plugs are cheap, so
replace those and try it, before pulling the head....

-Mitch

On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 10:51 AM, ANTHONY BARNARD
<tony.barnard at comcast.net> wrote:
> Hi Greg, Not overly familiar with your car but it sounds like you are running
> too rich at cold start up. I would do a complete service with NEW plugs and
> possibly wires/distributor cap even compression test. I have not had a lot of
> success in restoring plugs if they have been fouled. Interested to know how
> you get on.
> Regards Tony Barnard
> On Jul 1, 2012, at 7:08 PM, Greg Badano wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I am hoping I can get some possible trouble shooting
>> suggestions for diagnosing a starting issue that has recently developed
> with
>> my car.  It starts up almost immediately but it's not firing on all
>> cylinders.  It will lope along for a few minutes this way and then I can
> hear
>> and feel the missing cylinder(s?) start to kick in here and there until it
>> finally all six are firing the way they should and it idles smoothly at 500
>> RPM.  Revs and drives just fine after this initial rough period as well.
> It
>> does this consistently if it has been sitting a while.  I pulled all the
>> plugs, cleaned and re-gapped them thinking perhaps one was fouled.  For
> what
>> it is worth they were all pretty dark.  Maybe this is related and maybe
> not.
>>
>> Any thoughts on what might be going or how I might isolate the problem?
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any thoughts and suggestions.
>>
>> Greg
>> 1959 AC Aceca
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