flooding problem revisited

[carwilef7]

I Posted about an intermittent flooding problem a few days ago. Here's an update:

 

From sitting for a couple of hours, I went to the store a mile away, left the truck running for about 3 minutes, then rolled down the street to the carwash and shut it off. Washed the truck (4 min., maybe), and it flooded when I turned the key. Waited ten for it to clear out and drove back home.

 

Waited about 4 minutes and it started up perfectly - no gas smell. Went out an hour later, had a beer with friends, hung out for an hour. Started fine, drove home (6 miles - it was in the normal temp range). Waited 15 minutes and tried to start and it flooded again.

 

Waited another 10 min to clear it., then for the hell of it I pulled a plug wire and stuck a screwdriver in the end with the shaft near the manifold in order to check spark while cranking. Truck started right up on 5 cylinders, but there was a yellow arc instead of the blue I expected.

 

Shut it off, re-installed the plug wire, restarted and let it run a cpl minutes and shut it off. Waited 5 minutes and it started fine. And again five minutes later, and yet again, five minutes after that.

 

Seems to me that either something causes all the injectors to dump a @#$%load of fuel at one random key turn, or there's a glitch in the ignition system that allows ok-to-mediocre spark sometimes, and none at others.

 

Any ideas?

[GrimGreg]

If you have a yellow spark your coil is probably shot.

[Kingman]

X2.

[carwilef7]

I agree - I think it's the coil.

 

Haynes manual says the 3.3L distributor has to be replaced as a unit. Any way around this?