P0303 attack Plan

[JonN]

Brother's (now his) PT spit a P0303 this week and is running like crap. I pulled up the plug wire from cylinder 1 which is easily accesible and I can see oil in the spark plug well. Wonder if the cylinder 3 plug could have been damaged by also having oil in the well. I cleared the code once to see if it would come back and it came back immediately on start up.

I'm gonna do plugs and wires first on Saturday (\as I honestly don't think it's ever been done even at 175K miles). I will also change the valve cover gasket and intake manifold gaskets. I'm a firm believer of only taking everything apart once whenever possible.

Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

[ptcruisersteve]

As long as you are pulling the spark plugs you might consider checking the engine compression in all cylinders. See if engine compression is low on cylinder 3.

[JonN]

Good point, Steve. I don't have a compression tester though. I'm very close to many auto stores I'm sure one of them has that in their loan a tool program.

[ajhockey3]

Originally Posted by JonN

Good point, Steve. I don't have a compression tester though. I'm very close to many auto stores I'm sure one of them has that in their loan a tool program.

Yes im pretty sure they all do, I bought one at Princess auto (Similar to harbour freight but in Canada) for like $25.

[JoeX]

Oil in the spark plug well happens when the seal on the tube needs replaced, never caused a problem and eventually got replaced. You have to pull the valve cover to replace the seals,

[JonN]

New plugs, wires, and gaskets in and it's running great again. Had some plans for Saturday come up so I broke out the big lights and did it in the dark.