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Hey Paul Danner, I have a question for you. I had a 2001 buick lesabre 3800 series that would not run, checked for the basics ( fuel, spark). I had no spark on the coil packs so I removed them and tested the ignition module with a test light and all drivers were firing so I re-installed the coil packs and found the middle coil pack showing good spark but the two on the ends with no spark and it still would not start, but if I pulled the plug wires off of the middle coil pack that was firing the car would start up and run but when re-installing the plug wires on the middle coil pack the car would shut off. So I switched the coil packs around( now all coils are firing and the car runs). What could have caused this problem? I'm confused.
Hi,
I think that this car was sitting for a while, am I correct in my thoughts?
If So I would suspect that the contacts on the bottom of the coils were a bit crusty and thus making a bad connection. By you moving the coils you cleaned the contacts and by this action you have spark once more..
This is just my thought as I have had many issues with bad contacts. Normally you can clean them just by removing the two parts and replacing them. This is pretty common in computers.
I would unplug the coils, 1x1 & see what one allows it to start. Probably the middle one is bad, as stated in your original post. Shorted internally, I suspect. Moving them around may have have jostled something back into place. Inspect the connections & replace the suspected coil. All you can do with the amount of information & tool limitations that we seem to have. Let us know.
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