No spark on cylinder 2 & 3 on 1992 camry 4 cyl

[rickyeby]

Hi guys,
I have spark at cyl I & 4. There is no spark in 2 & 3. the car starts buts runs rough and there is a lot of smoke(unburnt gas) coming out the tail.

What are the causes of no spark in the two cylinders only.

Thanks a lot for reading and taking your time.

[chronoti]

bad plugs, wires, rotor/cap.

i dont think the 92 is pulse controlled from the ecu so i would rule out anything like cam triggers and the igniter, may even be the coil going bad and due to other things 2&3 are the weakest due to other parts, so they aren't firing

[Kenny_McCormic]

Plugs?
Wires?
Cap and rotor?

[4Cyl'erThriller]

^That'd be my guess aswell. Thats normally the first thing I do when I get a car is a nice tune up w/ plugs and wires cap & rotor. Sometimes you can hear the wires arcing if the wire has a split in it.

[hill8570]

What they said. Ignitor and coil are common for all four cylinders, so unlikely to be those. In order of likelihood (IMHO):

Cap and/or rotor (just replace as a pair)
Wires (could be getting an arc between 2 & 3 wire...should be easy to see in the dark)
Plugs

[Mike Gerber]

Like hill8570 said you can sometimes see arcing between 2 wires. One old way to check was to wait till dark or go in to a dark garage and start the car. Now take a plant mister of water and spray mist all over the wires and the cap. You will usually see if there is any arcing. Shut the lights if necessary.

Mike

[rickyeby]

Thank you all for the replies. This car has an igniter and i Think the igniter is fine because i swapped igniter from a working car and it did not make any difference. The distributor rotor and cap are new. there is a lot of soot on the spark plugs. I checked the wires for spark again after i started the thread and there is intermittent spark(in the sense that the interval between the sparks are too long and there is no consistency) in cyls 2 and 3.

The problem started after i washed the engine bay. could water getting into any ignition components cause this intermittent spark problems for just 2 cylinders. The resistance between the coil was .8 Ohms. Is that within the specs or do i have a problem with that.



I will change the plugs and wires and see what happens and post the results.

[hill8570]

Originally Posted by rickyeby

Thank you all for the replies. This car has an igniter and i Think the igniter is fine because i swapped igniter from a working car and it did not make any difference. The distributor rotor and cap are new. there is a lot of soot on the spark plugs. I checked the wires for spark again after i started the thread and there is intermittent spark(in the sense that the interval between the sparks are too long and there is no consistency) in cyls 2 and 3.

The problem started after i washed the engine bay. could water getting into any ignition components cause this intermittent spark problems for just 2 cylinders. The resistance between the coil was .8 Ohms. Is that within the specs or do i have a problem with that.

I will change the plugs and wires and see what happens and post the results.

Specs on the primary (ignitor) side of the coil are 0.35-0.55 ohms cold, 0.45-0.65 ohms hot. 0.8 ohms on the primary will probably give you a colder / weaker spark, but I'd expect it to be weak on all four cylinders. Do 1 and 4 look like they're getting a good burn?

You might be having pickup coil problems in the dizzy water got in there during the bay cleaning. It's take more than a mist of water to do that, but if you were doing a pressure wash of the engine with the dizzy not wrapped up, it's possible. I would think you'd be getting a DTC or two in that case, 'tho. Is the check engine light on? If so, have you checked the codes?

Was the rotor & cap changed out before or after this started to happen?

[rickyeby]

Originally Posted by hill8570

Specs on the primary (ignitor) side of the coil are 0.35-0.55 ohms cold, 0.45-0.65 ohms hot. 0.8 ohms on the primary will probably give you a colder / weaker spark, but I'd expect it to be weak on all four cylinders. Do 1 and 4 look like they're getting a good burn?

You might be having pickup coil problems in the dizzy water got in there during the bay cleaning. It's take more than a mist of water to do that, but if you were doing a pressure wash of the engine with the dizzy not wrapped up, it's possible. I would think you'd be getting a DTC or two in that case, 'tho. Is the check engine light on? If so, have you checked the codes?

Was the rotor & cap changed out before or after this started to happen?

Thanks a lot. I think this might be my problem.

There are no codes. the rotor and cap was changed today.
The engine was steam washed to find a leak. but it ran fine after the steam wash. I washed the engine bay again after the leak was fixed with regular hose water. its after that the problem started.
Can you tell me how to test the pick up coil? Even though i have spark in 1 & 4 the i think the its weak. the poor wires and plug condition on the 2 & 3 may be amplifying the weak signal.

The wires and plug are definitely very old.

[hill8570]

Originally Posted by rickyeby

Can you tell me how to test the pick up coil? Even though i have spark in 1 & 4 the i think the its weak. the poor wires and plug condition on the 2 & 3 may be amplifying the weak signal.

The wires and plug are definitely very old.

Yeah, might be a case of a lot of marginal / old components all snowballing into a problem. Hate those kind of issues.

www.camrystuff.com , Generation 3, Ignition System section contains the procedures and specs for checking the coil and pickups. The actual manual is for a '94, but I'm pretty sure the '92 was pretty much the same.

[rickyeby]

Originally Posted by hill8570

Yeah, might be a case of a lot of marginal / old components all snowballing into a problem. Hate those kind of issues.

www.camrystuff.com , Generation 3, Ignition System section contains the procedures and specs for checking the coil and pickups. The actual manual is for a '94, but I'm pretty sure the '92 was pretty much the same.

Thanks a lot. this is awesome. I will check the distributor first thing tomorrow morning.

[rickyeby]

i checked the distributor according to the service manual and the resistances were not correct. so i bought a reman dizzy from autozone and i checked the resistances on it. it was exactly the same as on my old distributor. so i installed the old distributer itself with new spark plugs and wires and cap and rotor. the car runs a lot better now. the smoke is a lot less and the idle is less rough. Now i have consistent spark in all four cylinders. That being said the idle is still a little rough and it goes up and down a little(not normal). and there is still some smoke. I know that a couple of motor mounts are bad. Can that couse the idle to pulsate.

Also I checked the timing and adjusted it to spec.

the car has more than 225k miles on it.

what else could cause the rough idle.

[hill8570]

Originally Posted by rickyeby

i checked the distributor according to the service manual and the resistances were not correct. so i bought a reman dizzy from autozone and i checked the resistances on it. it was exactly the same as on my old distributor. so i installed the old distributer itself with new spark plugs and wires and cap and rotor. the car runs a lot better now. the smoke is a lot less and the idle is less rough. Now i have consistent spark in all four cylinders. That being said the idle is still a little rough and it goes up and down a little(not normal). and there is still some smoke. I know that a couple of motor mounts are bad. Can that couse the idle to pulsate.

Also I checked the timing and adjusted it to spec.

the car has more than 225k miles on it.

what else could cause the rough idle.

Bad mounts cause cause idling issues to be more obvious, but they won't actually cause them. Ever clean the throttle body / idle air control valve? A icky IAC could cause idle issues. It's at least easy to do...if it helps the problem, great, if not we move on to other possibilities. The DIY section here has a good writeup on cleaning the IAC.

BTW, what color / smell is the smoke? Be nice to know if it's oil, coolant, or just an overly rich mixture.

[rickyeby]

i cleaned the TB. The smoke is kinda black and its mostly rich mixture. there is a strong smell of gas in the smoke. i will clean the iac.

[rickyeby]

when i went to clean the IAC i found a hose disconnected. Plugging it back and cleaning the iac fixed the problems. IT was the little rogue hose.

Thanks you all for for helping me out.