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Alan17 · 11-29-2013, 09:33 PM

In hopes to help others i will post my recent experience. We headed to Nevada for Thanksgiving and our 1995 MH Chevy P32 chassis 454 developed a slight engine mid.
Taking off from a stop the engine would shudder a little but when up to highway speeds it felt to run normally. Climbing the steep pass grades it felt underpowered kind of like we were pulling something really heavy (we were not)
The trip is a 550 mile trip and I usually only burn 2/3 of a tank but this time I had to stop and get gas before we reached our destination. (Gas milage was was off compaired to previous trip use same route)
At destination I pulled the dog house off today and found that the plug wire on the back passenger side had failed. When I went to pull off the boot it separated and could see that it had burned through the boot. I went to Napa and got a new plug wire set and changed them. The instant that I fired her back up I could tell the difference as the engine was running much smoother.
I will post back and let all know how my return trip turns out.

tedgard01 · 11-29-2013, 09:51 PM

Thanks for the post. I'll keep this as a reminder to look at that if those symptoms display.

spritz · 11-29-2013, 10:53 PM

We had that happen on our 82 just didn't seem up to par so we started changing the wires and 4 of the 8 had rust around the part that clips onto the plug 1 wire barley on. It runs so smooth now you can hardly hear it running and even a difference on the HWY just so smooth. Can hardly wait to hear how yours ran down the HWY.

Wizard · 11-30-2013, 06:16 AM

Same thing happened on a '96 I once had. A renowned Chevy technician told me that under heavy load that engine would cause the exhaust manifold to get so hot the would sometimes glow red. He told me a specific type or brand of wires to replace them with and to be sure to route them as far away from the exhaust manifold as possible. Never had another problem. Wish I could remember the type of wires but that was several years ago.

spritz · 11-30-2013, 07:53 AM

Not sure if we used the correct ones. We bought them from NAPA and so far so good. I don't think I have gotten the manifolds that hot yet!!! even towing the caddie on a KarKattySS it runs just under 1/2 way on the temp gauge towing or not towing

Alan17 · 12-04-2013, 10:38 PM

On my return trip from Nevada all went well with the new plug wires. My power was back and my MPG's were back to normal (9.5 MPG)
I will be carrying a spair set of plug wires with me on future trips as it cost me more in gas over the 500 miles than the cost of the new plug wire set. My MPG dropped to 7 with the miss caused by the plug wire failure.