This has to be the DIS….. right?

WBK89

Registered User
It’s an 89 and it has been running great lately.
Every day for the past couple months I have been driving with the AC on 98% of the time.
Today I drove with out the AC off all day.
After work (drove for 15 minutes) I stopped at the body shop that is going to fix my hail damage (car off for 15 minutes)
When leaving the body shop the car started normal and when I went to shift from 1-2 the car the tachometer dropped to 0 and the car sputtered and went back to normal. It did this 2 more times (stopped shifting from 1-2 gently)in fewer than 5 minutes.
I pulled over checked the crank pulley for wobbles / the bolt and messed with the plugs connected to the DIS. Then I drove the car for another 10 minutes and no matter what I did it didn’t do it again and it's running strong

I had the crankshaft sensor replaced a little over a year a go when the balancer broke off.

I was thinking that the AC was keeping the DIS cool and since I didn’t use it today the DIS is over heating?

Also the DIS Has a crack in it's top over the word DIS and it has never been changed. car has 123k

What do you guys think?
Thanks!

Wes
 
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one time my battery terminal was touching the hood mine acted that way sounds like crank sensor or dis to me
 
i'd check lots more stuff and want another event before replacing the DIS. Tach drop is more indicitive of a Cam sensor problem. especially if the tach went to zero and the car started to run poorly, but still ran.

But start with pulling codes.
 
When the tach dropped to zero the car instantly sounded like it died or almost died.

I will see if it does it again today. This car is now my daily driver again :( Switched jobs no more company car.

Is this a problen that will leave me on the road dead. Is it safe to drive it for a couple of days untill i get time to have it looked at.

Wes
 
It could certainly leave you hanging if the DIS dies. If the Cam sensor dies you can typically get the car to start by turning the key to off, and back on between retries to start it. This gets the DIS to guess which cylinder to fire randomly. Eventually it will guess right (should be 1 out of 3 tries).
 
Today when driveing at about 35 the car bucked a couple of times. The tach did not drop to zero.
In stop and go traffic it died three times in under 2 minutes. I noticed that the light on the far left of the dash came on the battery light (Yellow) I think?

Can codes be pulled inf the check engine light never came on?

Thanks for the help.
 
well the tach not working sounds like cam sensor probably. But if the DIS is cracked, replace it. It's a problem waiting to happen SOON. The AC on or off shouldn't effect it, actually if the AC is on everything in the engine compartment will be hotter so it should actually be worse if anything. Many NAPA stores have a tester that can test your DIS and give you a printout that shows the specs and actual test results of each circuit, it's pretty cool but not all NAPA stores have it. but like i said if it's cracked its kinda beside the point, it's gonna be bad soon. Good Luck
 
Dont worry about that cracked cover on the DIS module, it will not hurt anything. I know of several that have worked flawlessly for years that way.
But you do need to pull the codes.:)
 
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