You're right about the "time spent" issue with lock cylinder, JimBlake. And, after a wonderful test run around town and on our Beltway over past weekend, (see..."speedway"), when started up this morning I noticed strong gas smell, which ended up being a rolled, torn fuel injector o-ring that allowed pools of gas in the intake manifold surface chambers .... my bad. It was one of the upper o-rings where it connects to the fuel rail, when it pulled out slightly during removal to clean EGR passages, and I must have pressed it back into the fuel rail improperly. CarGuy was right about the need to be careful when pulling and replacing the fuel rail/injector assembly during the EGR cleaning procedure. Took me an hour to find the right-sized universal o-ring in the garage, but it did the temp-fix trick so far, and I will be picking up 4 new OEM dealer o-rings tomorrow for proper repair.

 

The O-rings don't cost much, so think about getting all 8 of em. Four upper (fuel rail) and 4 lower (vacuum-leak at intake manifold).

 

Right. $2.89 ea. for the upper o-rings. Parts guy ordered lower "seal rings" instead, had to reorder and put off fix. Then went to local boneyard, found plenty of injectors still on rail, in chambers. Grabbed up buncha still-gas-soaked o-rings off a '97 Accord (gas ran out from rail when each injector was pulled), including the little upper injector gas filters which can't be ordered separately I found out. No biggie, but I also learned the hard way, dropping one during prior cleaning procedure, and it fell far enough into lower engine area to lose, but not far enough to hit the pavement. Lesson learned.

Have not had recurrence of prior stalling problem since thorough cleaning of entire distributor assy. Will definitely be ordering new distributor this weekend from Rock Auto. No one responded/confirmed that the amount of oil leaking into dist in pics might have contributed to stalling, but I believe that it could have. Couldn't a large, expansive spiderweb spread of oil inside dist cap cause a complete, momentary interruption of electronic spark distribution to cause faltering and stalling? Isn't oil conductive?

 

I would expect the oil can cause problems, but I've read enough posts from people who have oil in there without problems too. Sounds like it's not totally predictable.

 

I got a new ignition key cut at dealership for $10 and it works very well. It goes into cylinder more firmly, same with the door lock cylinder, and seems to sit in there more firmly also. Replaced upper o-rings last night, and still have not had a stalling problem since cleaning oil from dist a week ago. Strongly considering buying a Rock Auto dist soon, and I may be ok for a while. Thanks for everyone's good advice. I couldn't have gotten through this without it.