Thank you, I was able to remove the rest of the spark plug wires with 45deg pliers, barely using the tips to grasp the boot and twist a little. I used the grease when I first installed the cable set but I suspect when the test only (smog) shop worked on the car some months later, they might (or perhaps I did not put enough grease) not have added some - hard to tell.

One thing I noticed when I was able work on the remainder sparkplugs is that the one cable that had the inner plastic sticking out, seems to not have been making full contact with the spark plug.. upon removing that cable again... I noticed there was white dust around the inner metal casing, the top of the sparkplug and the inner porcelain? connector of the cable? the inner plastic slipped off as well.

I believe there must have been some arcing happening inside. Trimmed one end portion of the inner plastic sleve so It would fit since the length had increased due to it being streched and wrapped the metal boot externally with electrical tape (in case it was arcing externally).

Car has been running rough since then, I suspect a new cable set is needed. (granted the car has other issues too being 230k+)

I obviously need a new cable.. whichs means new set. Is there a way to test if I may need a new distributor cap? and how hard is it to take off? lengthy process? I now live on an apartment and cannot take too long fixing a car per se, also extremely living on a very tight budget so I must try to test and be sure before replacing any part.

Thanks

__________________
89 300E - 240k +