2.9L TFI Weird Issue

[BoomTexan]

Hey yall, I've had TFI problems for a little bit. Did the heat sink + dummy unit mod recently and it seemed to work fine for a little bit, but I've started having the problems again as it gets hotter in summer and I'm stuck in Atlanta traffic. To be expected and all that, I'm planning to relocate the TFI inside the cab close to the ECM, should be cooler inside.

Weirdly enough though, I've been carrying a 2nd TFI in case of emergency. It went out on me on the way back from church today, and I was prepped and ready. Hotswapped (pun intended) the 2nd TFI and it had the exact same issue. Curious about this, as the 2nd TFI should have immediately fixed the issue, right? Came back after it cooled down 2 hours later and it was fine again, working with both TFIs. Is this an issue with the ECM getting hot, or not resetting? It is located next to the blower motor, which has the door stuck open, so the heater core is always on and always blowing hot air.

Very very confused why this issue might be arising. After I replaced my water pump, it's running cool-ish, doesn't go above midway on the meter, so it should be less of a problem now, but it's still showing up. Any idea from yall on why that might have happened? I'm fine with getting a new ECM, but don't want to unload the parts cannon quite yet.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Coils also fail when hot....so do pickups in distributors. I doubt the TFI is your issue

 

[BoomTexan]

Coils also fail when hot....so do pickups in distributors. I doubt the TFI is your issue

Ah, that would make sense. Just replaced my ignition coil with a new Delphi unit so I really doubt it's that, but I can carry the old one around and if the problem reappears I'll try and change it out and see what happens. Seems like something that I'll have to simulate to be able to diagnose.

Really hope that it's not the distributor pickup but we will see. Seems like a pain to replace the pickup, but thankfully I've got ~1 month between college ending and starting my job, so I can take the time to take the valve covers and intake off and do some work that I otherwise wouldn't do.

I really need a Honda or something, daily-ing 2 project cars is such a pain in the ass sometimes.

 

[BoomTexan]

Ah, that would make sense. Just replaced my ignition coil with a new Delphi unit so I really doubt it's that, but I can carry the old one around and if the problem reappears I'll try and change it out and see what happens. Seems like something that I'll have to simulate to be able to diagnose.

Really hope that it's not the distributor pickup but we will see. Seems like a pain to replace the pickup, but thankfully I've got ~1 month between college ending and starting my job, so I can take the time to take the valve covers and intake off and do some work that I otherwise wouldn't do.

I really need a Honda or something, daily-ing 2 project cars is such a pain in the ass sometimes.

Never mind, I don't have a bearing press/puller so I will be purchasing a new distributor.

Not having a garage is such a pain in the ass sometimes.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Never mind, I don't have a bearing press/puller so I will be purchasing a new distributor.

Not having a garage is such a pain in the ass sometimes.

Its alot eaiser just to swap the distributor and retime it. lol

As far as your new coil...it could very well be junk. New parts are 50\50 anymore...and dont forget about wiring either

 

[SenorNoob]

I don't think some new parts are even 50/50 anymore. Seems like injectors 10/90.

 

[BoomTexan]

Replacing distributor is going well I suppose, trying to get the new one to fit in the proper orientation right now. Should have an update tomorrow.

Bought a new one from Autozone with their coupon, turned out to be cheaper than the ones on RockAuto. Will let yall know how it goes, the slotting into the distributor casing is kinda weird, but should be fine eventually.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Replacing distributor is going well I suppose, trying to get the new one to fit in the proper orientation right now. Should have an update tomorrow.

Bought a new one from Autozone with their coupon, turned out to be cheaper than the ones on RockAuto. Will let yall know how it goes, the slotting into the distributor casing is kinda weird, but should be fine eventually.

It can be a challenge sometimes to get the distributor just right to fire so be patient with it. Once it will run, then you can pull the Spout connector and use a timing light to get it just right.

 

[BoomTexan]

It can be a challenge sometimes to get the distributor just right to fire so be patient with it. Once it will run, then you can pull the Spout connector and use a timing light to get it just right.

I usually just kinda eyeball it. I'll check on a timing light when I have the thing running and can make it to Autozone for a rental. Managed to get it set in place, locked down with the bolt. I'm also in the process of cleaning out the EGR piping and intake, its taking forever and I've gone through a wire brush and like 2 cans of brake cleaner so far.

While I have the intake off, just gonna replace the gaskets and everything else. Got some Blue Devil Motor Flush, fuel pressure tester, fuel filters, struts, just figure I might as well throw everything at the wall while I have some time to really do stuff and have the intake off.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I usually just kinda eyeball it. I'll check on a timing light when I have the thing running and can make it to Autozone for a rental. Managed to get it set in place, locked down with the bolt. I'm also in the process of cleaning out the EGR piping and intake, its taking forever and I've gone through a wire brush and like 2 cans of brake cleaner so far.

While I have the intake off, just gonna replace the gaskets and everything else. Got some Blue Devil Motor Flush, fuel pressure tester, fuel filters, struts, just figure I might as well throw everything at the wall while I have some time to really do stuff and have the intake off.

Usually what I do, when it’s apart, fix everything that might need fixed in hopes that it doesn’t have to come apart again anytime soon after, lol

 

[BoomTexan]

Tried to replace my O2 sensor and ended up stripping it accidentally. Was already kinda stripped lol, but made it a bit worse, and when the sensor wrench adapter came off, it pulled the body of the thing off, so now I have no O2 sensor.

The repair process for this one little thing is taking far longer than anticipated. Thankfully, my autozone order got delayed so I have today to work on it.

Plan: cut the little bridge pipe off with a sawzall, weld it to my workbench to keep it stable, cut it down to fit a smaller size impact socket, impact it off. Hoping the heat from the welding will help loosen it a bit. If it doesn't impact off, I'm gonna drill it off, try and weld a new bung to it.

Really hate the Ford O2 sensor placement, there's like no way to easily get this thing off, and the PB Blaster + heat combo wasn't working at all anyways. Got my tiny little 300lbft impact, but worst case I'll borrow my friend's 2000lbft impact and just demolish this thing.

 

[BoomTexan]

Say what you will about the Chinese, but they make one hell of a good sawzall blade. In fairness, it was time to replace my Diablo ones, but it took like 20 mins and a battery to get halfway yesterday and then 3 minutes to do the other half today. Haven't gotten around to the welding/breaking free, but it'll get done tomorrow before we get 12 days of rain in a row.

Do have a couple questions, do yall know of a good way to test my distributor's new pickup coil? Got everything back together, fired it up, and it wouldn't start. Fuel is working and I'm getting voltage from the ignition coil. Rotor is rotating, but I did a spark test on the plugs and I'm getting nothing.
My options are: either pickup coil is bad, or mixing and matching rotors and caps didn't work, leading to some disconnect between the rotor/ignition coil, or some disconnect between the rotor/spark plugs points. Any tips for testing the coil or testing the rotor/cap thing?

Second question, I got a fuel pressure testing kit and none of the things fit over the Schrader valve. Do yall have a link to one that'll work properly? Don't really want to cannibalize my only tire pump for this.

Completed today (doing this so I feel good about myself and my 6 hours of work haha): New fuel filter, wasted 45 mins trying to figure out if I could put 20 adapters on my fuel pressure tester and have it work, new oil filter, drained a quart of oil and dumped a quart of oil flush in the crankcase, sawed off the metal pipe with the O2 sensor bung in it, installed 2 rear shocks, installed intake, intake gasket, throttle body, throttle body gasket, all the sensors and applicable gaskets, and got it ready to go (once distributor starts working)

 

[BoomTexan]

NEED HELP

Ok, so I tried this with virtually every rotor/cap orientation, none of them made any difference. The ignition coil was firing to the center of the cap, but no spark was going to the outside of the cap. I'm a little confused here, as the center of the cap and the outside of the cap should ideally be connected to the same metal strip on the rotor. The thing I thought of was maybe it'll stop charge to the coil when it's cranking if the situation is not ideal, but there was steady charge going from the coil at all points. I've verified that the rotor is rotating when the car is cranking, and I manually set the rotor to be at a plug output position while the car was on, and still got nothing.

After that, I tested the pickup coil. From the individual windings to ground, the old and the new one tested the same. Between windings, the new one tested like 20x lower than the old one. Thought I might be getting somewhere, and then suddenly the ignition coil stopped outputting voltage on my spark light thingy. Might be because I was cranking the engine too much and it just ran out, so I'm charging the battery right now.

Looked for the SPOUT connector and it turns out that it's been unplugged since I got the truck. Had always wondered what that thing was supposed to do. If that's the case and it is unplugged, then I should be able to fire the truck without any input from the TFI or the computer, right?

My one thing I'm wondering about is that apparently there's a cam sensor? If there's a chance that I put the distributor in at 120 degrees off or something, wouldn't I just be able to rotate the plug wires two over, or would the cam sensor freak out and just not allow the distributor to fire? That's my last idea short of just saying that the distributor is defective and sending it back.

So either the pickup coil is bad (due to testing 20x lower between windings, though it's the same from winding sides to ground), or it's user error involving a cam sensor that I didn't know existed.

This is just incredibly confusing and I'm kinda annoyed that this distributor system is more complicated than my 1995 Mazda MX-3s one, despite this Ranger being 10 years older and having overall fewer sensors and tech.