Greetings All,
Early this morning my 86 XJ-6 fell ill. I will describe the symptoms and
hopefully someone can identify some possible causes (or even better, "The"
cause).
This morning as I started out I noticed the idle was rather erratic. When I
came to a stop the tach was fluctuating wildly and the surging/sputtering
pattern was noticeable. When travelling at speed everything seems fine so I
pressed on thinking perhaps the problem would vanish as I reached operating
temperatures. I did make a brief stop; the car stalled in the parking lot
but restarted easily (I checked the oil for good measure, it was fine). For
whatever it is worth, everything ran fine the evening before.
Anyway, a few miles don the road the speed limit dropped to the point where
I did not need to apply throttle. At this point the engine died, I rolled
off to the side of the road and she has refused to start since.
I have checked or tried the following:
1) Both tanks are close to full.
2) The engine cranks over easily, the battery seems fine.
3) I sprayed some starting fluid in the air cleaner, no change at all.
4) I pulled the wire from the distributor, there is spark.
The car is now sitting in a shop. Still, as I have little confidence in the
diagnostic abilities of most shops I thought I would turn to the real
experts.
Regards,
Mike Israel
israel@merck.com
BTW, the shop tells me the car was towed ten miles on it's rear wheels by
the auto club. The tow driver did not disconnect the drive shaft so
hopefully nothing else got damaged.
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