Ok guys, 89 740gl b230f

yesterday when my wife picked me up, the car had a bit of a problem on the way home. It drove fine in a moderate L.A. rain; then when we went up a small hill, the car lost power but continued. It stumbled like it wanted to die. My wife floored the pedal, but still the same reaction from the car. When we were back in a flat section, it also produced high revs 2500-3000 rpms on the tach, but the same lack of power. Flooring the pedal produced no effect. After about 5-10 min, the problem went away, indicating some type of water problem. I'm thinking it might be the crank sensor getting wet.

so any thoughts?

 

beardog, I had kind of the same proble with my 740. Mine would either loose power in medium rain or die in heavy rain, not consistantly but one time is to often. after trying several diffrent things (one was crank sensor) i got a water hose and ran it on hood and windshield. I discovered the weather stripping on the fire wall for the hood at the distributer had split and when it rained my wipers sent it all right on to my distributer cap and wires. Once i siliconed the weather stripping --problem solved. Hope you find this useful. Enjoyed you quotes on the bottom of your page-- so true!

 

thanks, about the quotes, I've run them for years on the bottom of my emails. I think I sent a couple of letters to my senators a couple of times with those quotes attached. I don't think the responses were that positive, but then again they did seem like canned email.

I look into the weatherstripping.

 

Most likely ignition (wires, etc) related.

 

I agree with bubba240. Put a timing light on each spark plug wire and see if you get light. Over time, the resistance in each wire builds up. Or, run a resistance check on each wire. Brand new, the coil wire should be ~2 kohms and the spark plug wires ~6 kohms (at least for my brand new Bosch wires). Before I replaced my spark plug wires, I was getting all sorts of gremlins.

 

Volvo had a bulletin out about the rear of head mounted distributors getting wet when it rained. The fix was removing the shower cap that Volvo fitted to them. I would also make sure your rear bonnet seal is good in the vicinity of the distributor.

Regards, Andrew.

 

have you looked to see if the cap is cracked? or taken the cap off to see if there's carbon scorch marks anywhere?

 

I have had the same problem after heavy rains - there would be excess moisture in the distributor cap for no reason. Buy a product called ignition sealer spray for $4-$5 dollars. Spray distributor and wires and you will not have the problem again unless you have a cracked disributor cap. Let me know how it works.