[burbmomof3]

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have a 1998 Suburban - the other day I was doing normal driving and started smelling a burning smell - this was *not* an oil burning smell! I swear! I know what oil burning smells like! (Sorry, just frustrated) This quite seriously smelled like a grass fire. In fact, until later I thought it was a grass fire in the area I was driving through.

As I got into town the check engine light came on with a very sudden rough (very rough!) idle at the stop light (significant misfire - extremely rough). Thought it was going to die so I carefully drove to where I was meeting someone, turned it off, let it cool, restarted to see if it would do the same thing. Yep.

Managed to make it home, opened the hood and smelled the fire smell from earlier - but not as strong, like an old campfire.

Mechanic friend suggested starting with the spark plugs and wires because the plugs were really fouled and the codes were saying missfire on 2 and 8. Did that today. Smell has faded. Missfire continues.

Any ideas?

 

[tbplus10]

Did you look for signs of burned wires?
Wouldnt have to be burned spark plug wires, could be wires providing power to the ignition system that got grounded somehow.

 

[Pikey]

I agree! Start looking around for some burnt wires. I have seen mice build nests in engine bays, those smell pretty bad when they catch fire. But, now with a misfire I would definitely take a look at wires.

 

[USAF-Suburban]

Agree with the previous 2 posts. Having the fire smell AND the misfire at the exact same time leads me to believe something is burned up (or went to ground) in the ignition system. Start by pulling all the wires off the truck and really inspecting them. As I think about this, 2 and 8 are on the same side of the block (passenger side) and very close on the distributor if memory serves me correctly. As such, it would not suprise me to find out they've burned together somehow since you are getting a misfire on both of them... Greg