I need to get the car to pass CO emissions so I figured plugs and wires were going to help. The car was running ok but had a bit of miss until it warmed up. It also had a bit of a stumble when giving it throttle.
I picked up a set of ACDelco plugs from AutoZone and decided to install new ACDelco spark plug wires from RockAuto.com today. I didn't beat the book -- by a long shot. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to get at the plugs on these cars. It think it might have quicker to pull the engine.
Plugs 2 and 4 I could get from the top but 6 and 8 had to be done from the bottom. On the other side, I was able to get plugs 1 and 3 from the top, 5 from the bottom, and 7 from both bottom and top. For #7 the exhaust was in the way, so I had to stick the spark plug socket on the plug from the bottom and then go at it with a 3/4" socket from the top.
Aside from the challenge of getting to the plugs themselves, the ACDelco wires kit I got (D16 618F, supposedly the "direct replacement" for the car) were different lengths than the non-Delco wires I took off. Some were longer, some shorter. The new Delco also wires did not have the nub on the distributor side boot to secured the plug wire to the distributor cap. The generic wires I was replacing did.
Routing the wires was also a challenge and something I still need to clean up. On the passenger side, the car had two factory wire holders that attached to the heat shield on the exhaust manifold. The holders themselves were ok, but the part that attached them to the heat shield was broken. A third wire holder on that side disintegrated in my hands due to age and heat. Getting the wires routed around the snake pit of vacuum hoses was also a challenge, but I mostly got them back where they had been.
The drivers side was a different story. The wires were routed along the firewall and back side of the engine block to a couple of factory wire holders which were broken. The wires were tie-strapped together in a few places, so I know some other poor soul had suffered through this job before me. The new wires, being longer and shorter, made routing them where the old wires were nearly impossible. To add to it, the new plugs wires had more straight boots than the old set, so I kind of used them where I thought they would do the most good.
The two wire holders on the drivers side also completely fell apart and couldn't be saved. The drivers side also had the steering linkage and the AIR tubes from the manifold in the way so routing is completely messed up on that side. I have everything out of the way, and it should be good enough to get me to the emissions station and back.
I disconnected the battery for 30 minutes to reset the ECM, then re-connected power and fired her up briefly. Idle seemed good.
Total time: 7 or 8 hours, not including two showers I took between left and right sides.