3000GT Weird Symptons? What could it be?

BLACK3KBEAUTY97

MEMBER
1997 MITSUBISHI 3000GT
188,000 MILES

97 3000gt, rotor button and coil been replaced, one day when I was putting oil in I attempted to start my car, and it would just crank and crank, after several hours I unplugged cylinder 3 spark plug wire from the distributo, it cranked right up, I put it back in it would bog down and die, now when I plug the spark plug wire halfway into the ditributor itll run like new, but it has to be about halfway plugged in, ive tried everything and all fails, really wanting to get this fixed since its my daily driver, ive tried replacing things that were obvious but nothing worked, what could this be caused by? I thought maybe distributor cap is shorted but I dont wanna spend money on something unless I know for a fact thats the problem. Any ideas? Please Help.

9 Replies

RIVERMIKERAT

MECHANIC
6,110 POSTS

Check the distributor cap. Check the #3 plug wire by switching it with #4(Same length), see if the problem follows the wire.

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Thursday, September 29th, 2011 AT 9:31 PM

BLACK3KBEAUTY97

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21 POSTS

Okay ill try that, if it dont work what do you think it might be?

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Thursday, September 29th, 2011 AT 10:43 PM

RIVERMIKERAT

MECHANIC
6,110 POSTS

Check the #3 plug tower on the cap. Check it for cracks and for the proper presence of the electrode. Also, look inside the cap for signs of 'tracing'-the buildup of contaminants that may conduct electricity between plug towers.

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Thursday, September 29th, 2011 AT 11:05 PM

BLACK3KBEAUTY97

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It still runs like dump, its so frustrating to figure out, makes me want to just junk it.

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Friday, September 30th, 2011 AT 4:32 PM

RIVERMIKERAT

MECHANIC
6,110 POSTS

Check the resistance of the wires. It shouldn't exceed 22kOhm. Spark plug gap should be no more than.043 and within.002 for all 6 plugs. Use a timing light on #3 to verify whether or not it is getting spark. It sounds like that answer will be no. You have to decipher why not.