Misfiring and no idea what to do

[STUEY HOLDEN LOVER YEP]

ok so im having some serious dramas with my commie

for a while it was having trouble starting up, and the other day it just wouldnt start at all, turned out to be the fuel pump.
ive had that fixed.

then there was a leak in my radiator, so i replaced that and flushed the whole system using one of the threads on this website...

before i changed the radiator, the car drove fine, had heaps of power and everything, its just that if i drove for more than 3 or 4 minutes, it would over heat... but i never let it get to that stage.

but now it misfires, and is really slow... struggles more in the low revs (doesnt over heat though )

how do i determine the problem, i cant even figure out which cylinder has the problem

when i undid one of the connections on the radiator, some oil came out, i think its the gearbox oil, but i checked the gearbox oil level and seems fine... that does leak a little bit though, but i wouldnt imagine that would be the source of the misfiring problem.

also could i have gotten something wet that i wasnt sposed to, im gonna leave it til tomorow and hope that it dries out and fixes itself, but though in the meantime i would post this...

any help would be greatly appreciated.
i just got my license back from a 3 month suspension, and since i got it back all ive done is fix the car and im going crazy, all i wanna do it goes through the national park with no dramas...

[STUEY HOLDEN LOVER YEP]

by the way, car is 97 VS acclaim, automatic cheers

[hako]

The oil that came out would be one of the transmission oil cooler lines....not engine oil.
Does the car use any coolant?
Possibly your problem may be the inlet manifold gasket leaking coolant into the engine...this will cause misfiring. To check for this I would unscrew each spark plug and note the colour of the plug. Do this on a cold engine that has been sitting for a while. Look for wet black deposits on the plug nose. Another sign is white smoke from the tailpipe when you start a cold engine.
Also try a fault code check (easy) Checking error codes VR/VS (Revised)

[STUEY HOLDEN LOVER YEP]

well it was fine until I flushed it this arvo. the piece that has the bleeder screw, seems to leak a little from the gasket,, but I put a gasket and made it heaps tight. still leaks. if that the part your talking about? coz I put a new thermostat.

[The1]

did you clean the old surfaces up schmick before putting the new gasket on? if not that's prob why.

[EDGE3]

Never over tighten the gasket you will damage it,Im positive that you have to re-do the gasket again but do not tighten it to much they damage easy.

[STUEY HOLDEN LOVER YEP]

yeah I cleaned it with a blade n sand paper, n blocked the thermostat hole with a hankee. I couldnt work out where the rubber ring went so I left it out, but there was no ring wen I pulled out the old one. maybe thats y it leaks? would that really make it misfire?

[EDGE3]

I dont think thats the problem a mis fire has to do with the electrical part of the car you need to check the plugs,leads and the coils.Did you replace the radiator with a new one if so did you bleed the air out of it?

[vt s]

Start off with simple thing like leads and plugs. If you have a set of plastic fuel line clamps, have the car running and disconnect one lead at a time from the coil pack. You will find which cylinder it is when you pull one off and notice no difference. Or if you dont have that you can just disconnect one injector at a time.

[STUEY HOLDEN LOVER YEP]

all good boys, my hopes and wishes came true, got home from the tigers match last night and tried the car again, mis fire was gone, i dunno what ive gotten wet, but it dried out, and ive had the best day...

thanks for the advice guys, i hope this thread comes in handy for someone

cheers

stuey