I'm having an intermittent problem with no spark for the last two days. Yesterday I drove 10 minutes to Lowes and when I came out to leave the truck would crank but not start. I cranked it for about 10 seconds and would wait a minute. It started on the 4th attempt and drove home fine. The next morning I went to leave and it wouldn't start. I did the 10 second crank again but it didn't start after several tries. I checked fuel pressure and it was good. Got the spark tester out and I didn't have spark. I had a known good coil. no spark, tried a known good ICM, no spark, Left it for a couple hours an tried to start it again and it started up. I let it run for about 30 minutes and it ran fine. Any ideas what to check? I don't really trust it.

 

Best guess would be the PIP in the distributor. The next time it won't start and you have no spark, check to see if you have power to the coil through one of the little wires that hook onto the coil with the ignition switch turned on.

 

Carry a hard copy of the diagnostic procedure in this caption in the truck, along with ALL the tools needed:

(phone app link)


Read through that whole caption a few times, and study the truck, so you're familiar enough to work through it on the side of the road, if you need to.

 

Who makes a good replacement distributor?

 

No one makes these antique parts any more. There are a few rebuilders, but none authorized by Ford. AFAIK, the PIP (the only wiring in the distributor) is also NLA as a Ford/MC part. After spending a month diagnosing my Bronco's intermittent stall (several times on the side of the road), I isolated the PIP (the one that came with the replacement Echlin/NAPA distributor over a decade ago) as the cause and found one NOS, which I installed myself.

(phone app link)