alpinestar
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2008
- Messages
- 196
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
- Location
- Vancouver, Wa
- Vehicle Year
- 1989
- Make / Model
- ford
- Engine Size
- 5.0l
- Transmission
- Automatic
So heres the story, about 3 months ago i drove 2 hours away to look at this 87 ranger stx with the 2.9l v6, when i got there the truck fired right up and seemed to run fine except it idled at about 2000-2200rpm. i figured it would be an easy fix and the truck was cheap so i went ahead and bought it. so 2 hours driving back on the freeway the truck seemed to suck down gas a little quickly and seemed to lack power. the guy i bought it from said he replaced a lot of stuff including spark plug wires, cap and rotor, and starter solenoid. so towards the end of the drive i got off of the freeway and for the first time the whole drive i let off the gas and the truck just died, i started it back up and it idled at 500rpm and seemed to drive fine. over the next week i drove it around into town a couple times and it started to just randomly die while i was driving, i wouldnt even have to let off the gas it would just cut out and die, it did it a few times one day and started to take longer for it to start but it would still fire up after all. i took it home and replaced the idle control valve and throttle position sensor trying to fix the idling problem and hopefully cure the dying as well. neither of those things made a bit of difference to it. after that i let it sit in the driveway for about 4 or 5 days, i came out to start it and the battery was dead, so i charged up the battery and tried to start it and nothing, it just wouldnt fire for anything. so i started going through things one at a time, i took the spark plug out, stuck the wire on it and held it to a piece of metal to ground it out and turned it over and no spark. so knowing that the tfi module is a likely problem but i didnt have the ford tool to take it off so i took the coil in to get tested and figured if it was good then it had to be the tfi. the coil tested good like i thought and i bought a tfi module and the tool and came home. i took off the tfi and when i was putting the new one back in i realized that one of the screws that hold it on had been stripped out and wouldnt tighten up. but even so with the one screw holding it it seems to make good contact and hold up tight against the distributor. after all of this it still didnt have any spark. so in hope that maybe the guy that tested the coil missed something or just didnt know what he was doing(very likely when going to costless auto parts) i went out and bought a coil and put that in, still no spark at the spark plugs. so i got a test light and hooked it up right at the coil to see if it was producing spark, it is and turns the light on on my test light so im assuming its good. im at a dead end here, not sure what it could be. maybe the tfi module i got from costless is bad? or do i need to find a way to tighten up the one screw on the tfi? i put a zip tie around it to hold it firmly against the distributor but like i said it seemed like it was plenty tight against it as it was. the spark plugs look old as well but i dont see how that could stop spark completely? Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can give me, im just a little tired of dumping hundreds of dollars into a truck i only paid $750 for, if i wanted to i could probably just sell it and buy another but id like to keep this one. Thanks again and i hope someone can help me out!