740 GLE 1989 Severe rough running/stalling (after it rained)

[Yahwhatever88]

Ok, I am going to try to give as much info with as little words as I can and hope someone can help. This has happened now at least 5 times and progressively worse. After a car wash it is a little hard to start but it does and it idles fine but when I shift into drive it starts rattleing and acting like it's gonna stall but as I drive it surges and stalls, fires right up and continues like that for a minute or 2 and then smooths out. In between car washing a couple of times a different problem occured and at first I thought they were related but not sure, after driving it, turning it off and coming back to it several hours later it would just turn over yet never start ( this hapened 2 times) put fuel in still nothing, made sure I had spark and fuel which lead me to the timing belt. Sure enough timing had jumped, don't know why. Now 5 days ago I drove it, parked it and came out to start it and same thing, turning over but not starting. Made sure I had spark (which was weak by the way) and fuel. Got down to the timing belt and it had NOT jumped time. SO I was like what the hell. So I figure it's the distributor cap ( I thought it was that from the car wash problem too) anyway that's a real nice place they put the distributor, so after like forever I finally get the cap off, clearly it is wet , so I get the blow dryer out try to dry it. Nothing. Ok I cleaned the rotor and cap and plug wires the best I could ( can't afford to buy any right now) put them back on ( In the proper order) and sure enough after holding the pedal down for what seemed a long time long enough to run my battery down, it finally starts to sound like it's gonna catch and it does but OMG it is surging and hesitating now real bad. I don't know what I did but I managed to get it to start but it is running way worse than ever, It isn't as bad if I start in 1st gear and manually shift but I am just a girl and not a mechanic and it took me like 5 days just to complete all of the above. Some advice on what to do next would be appreciated. It sounds and feels like it's only running on 2 or 3 cyls but I put the dist wires back on just like I took em off. Help.

[billofdurham]

Welcome to Matthew's Volvo Site, your first step to becoming a mechanic and not "just a girl." Two of the best mechanics I know are "just girls".

Your car should be fitted with an On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) unit in the engine compartment. At the top of the forum, in the announcements, you will find the instructions for using this. It is the first step in the diagnosis of engine problems.

Check for fault codes and post back with any, or none, as the case may be. Once we know what is stored we can proceed.

Bill.