ok so i cranked up my 95 for a run today,drove 2 miles to get gas, drove maybe another mile to a stoplight and the car starts running extemely rough. i cut it off and when i tried to restart it wouldnt fire up, it was trying to turn over but it was missing and knocking..just making a racket...so i had it towed to the house and when we uloaded it it fired right up..any one got any ideas??

 

pull the codes.

 

+2 cant really know whats going on until we see if their are codes.

 

Was it running rough BEFORE you filled up with fuel, or did it only start running rough AFTER you added fuel?

When it restarted after you took it home, was it running good, or was it running rough? How long did it continue to run after it restarted?

 

i dont have a scanner...it ended up bein the lack of water in the radiator haha
i checked it a couple weeks ago..but apparently i have a leak somewhere

 

ok so the car did the exact same thing today...radiator is full and oil pressure is fine. put the car on the lift and noticed a leak from the water pump and the opti was wet...could this be the problem? i took the main pulley off and greased the opti plugs so no moisture could get in there for now. im gonna see if its throwin any codes tomorrow
any suggestions?

 

Why don't you fix the water leak first and then check to see if it is throwing codes. LF

 

A coolant soaked distributor could definitely be the problem. You're lucky its running at all.

 

gettin a new water pump tomorrow..hopefully all my problems will be solved.
my terminals looked fine, the plug and coil wires are new, and im 99% sure my air filter didnt suck up an water, it was bone dry.
this leaves the opti. is there anyway to modify an opti (waterproof)so it wont short out like that when it gets wet?
ive heard of problems occuring if you run over a puddle, surely theres a solution to something so simple

 

Some people have great luck with optisparks.. I dont.. The running rough part could well be caused by a lo or hi res error in the back half of the opti.. I've had every failure that can happen to an opti.. From harness to electronics.. When I did my build, I went with the full MSD replacement. Last failure was a combo of cap/rotor corosion, but also a much worse issue. The 4 pin harness that goes from the passenger side of the intake to the optispark for signal had "aquired" some moisture, and it literally ate the pins up. What would happen to me was once warm (usually far as hell from the house) it would start to lose ignition, and stall just going down the road.. Once cooled, it would start right back up.. The reason I went with the full MSD option, is that the harness is hard wired into the unit (with just a tail to plug in at the intake), so it's one less connection to fail. : / If your problem gets much worse, to the point it wont even start, you can always diagnose it like I did.. When it wouldnt start at all, I pluged a new opti and harness up to the connector on the intake, and turned the shaft.. That instantly primed the fuel pump, fired the injectors and the coil.. DUN... It's only been about a year, but no problems what so ever with the MSD.

As a side note.. One thing that was noticeable with my opti failure was the Tach would go ape **** when it would sputter and stall. It would literally flutter like it was having a heart attack. (The later diagnosis of harness corosion explained it all)

 

Just a word of advice, if your replacing the water pump, do the opti at the same time. If you wp dumped on your opti, theres a good chance its done, or will be done soon. Just swap it out now. No reason to pay double the labor when you can do them both at once.

 

no offense but this is horrible advice ,"hey while your in there spend $350 " i know sometimes that when water pumps go they take out the opti but damn if he opens it up and make sure its clean and no moisture is in there and it is working fine they he should be fine, but to spend 350 to replace that maybe working just fine i think is just careless,

everyone is quick to spend other peoples money if it aint broke dont fix it till it is.

heck he may get another 75 k outta that opti

 

id rather spend 350 now to be safe, then to spend 700 in two weeks when i have to pull it back apart to replace the opti. not to mention the 200 for the tow when it goes. Better to be safe then sorry.

 

well if the opti is pretty high mileage already i'd go ahead and do it

 

Most of us don't pay for labor.

High mileage, yes consider replacing the complete Opti. But to replace on a low mileage engine, just because there is a water pump problem makes little sense, particularly if it doesn't appear to be running rough after the bath.