By Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 03:33 am: Edit

Here's a question for the masses here..... the Disco started doing a new "thing" the other day.

Cruising along a highway, everything's normal. Then, there's a change. It sounds a bit like a miss, where the engine no longer is smooth, but gets a little bit rough. At the same time, I start to hear a clicking from behind the instrument cluster (maybe under the hood, but maybe not). It's a fluttering hesitation, a bit rumbly; the clicking is a higher-pitched click at a high rate of frequency, to the point it almost sounds like a purr. Nothing else is acting weird: no warning lights, no misbehaving tach or speedometer, only the two concurrent sounds. Then, just as quick as it came, it's gone. Smooth-running, no clicking, no fluttery shuddering anymore. All is fine again. No computer codes getting called by it, either.

It did it yesterday afternoon, and again today on the way to work. Is this the onset of some impending 'doom', or is this just an intermittent rumble that isn't really indicitive of anything?

FYI: '99 Disco (Series I); I had just replaced the spark plugs a week ago.... hadn't had any problems at all, and the ones that came out looked absolutely fine, but since they had 30k on them, I thought it'd be a good thing to change them out whether or not they had problems. Replaced Champions w/ Champions, RN11YCs... At the same time, I put on the Magnecors. Don't think they're causing the problem... I took my time, and made sure that each was fully seated on each of the plugs... you could feel when it the connector 'grabbed' the top of the plug. Also, since MOST of the time, there's no problem, it would lead me to think that the plugs and wires were fine, anyway.

So what could cause an intermittent miss as such?

-L

By bengott on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 05:38 am: Edit

I would say, and i could very well be wrong, check the wires again.. Not to say you did it wrong, but when you do something like add new wires or plugs and then a new prob. comes up within a short time after (a week in your case) it may be realted to that.. but again, i could be wrong..

ben

By Leslie N. Bright (Leslie) on Monday, August 06, 2001 - 06:51 am: Edit

I agree... after it did it this morning on the way to work, I decided that would be the first thing to check as soon as I get home... My suspicion is that one wire is not entirely on a plug, and as the vehicle moves it'll get far enough apart to cause it, and then move back and then the problem is gone.... I just thought that I'd be fore-armed from the Peanut Gallery's comments ahead of time just-in-case between here and the house something takes a dump, which this particular episode was preluding and I didn't recognize it as such.... Had no problems running to lunch and back, btw... Still, wondering about the behind-the-dash clicking that occurs w/ it.... hmmmm......

-L