2003 Protege5 - Mu son calls and say the CEL came on and the engine runs rough and sluggish. I grab my code reader and head down to his worksite. Sure enough it feels like it's running on 3 cyls and the code shows P0301 Cyl 1 misfire. After making sure all connections are tight, I pull the #1 spark plug boot and start the car to verify that #1 is dead. It is. However, I saw a nice light show as the spark jumped from the boot to the VC. It didn't spark out the opening at the end, it came from between the rubber cap and the hard plastic boot. When I inserted the boot back into the plug cavity, it lit up like a Van de Graaf generator with the spark jumping out like it did before.

After a visual inspection I could see no cracks, splits or arc trails on either the boot or the cap. Since I had no tools at the time I wrapped a small piece of electrical tape around it to better insulate it. It worked for now. I could only get about 1 1/2 wraps as the boot wouldn't fit into the recess enough to snap over the plug.

Cleared the code, started up and test drove fine. Order the wire set on Rockauto. Will schmear some dielectric grease on it to see if that helps too until the new wires arrive.

Good thing he was fairly local and not on some "mission" elsewhere in the county!!

 

Well, the tape "trick" didn't last long. Did another quick wrap to sustain it until the new leads came in. Put the new leads on last night. Will report back in a few days.

 

No further issue so I'll check this as done.

Thanks for watching!