Duraspark conversion on a rebuilt 2.8 help

[Danni84]

Hey guys, my head is about to explode from doing this duraspark conversion on my 84 ranger with the 2.8. I bought a new distributor, coil, ignition module, and duraspark plugs to make my own harness as I could not find a doner vehicle to salvage any parts from. I have properly built my own harness to connect the ignition module directly to the distributor, but I am not receiving spark. The motor is turning over just fine, I just can't get it to fire. I had the number one cylinder top dead center when I had my wife start turning over the engine. I even sprayed a few shots of starter fluid in. Than I stuck a screwdriver in the number one spark plug wire and held it to the head and had her turn in over some more. I did not see any spark. Than I put the screwdriver in the spark plug wire off the coil to the distributor and tried it again, and I found that it only sparked one time after she stopped turning the motor and it was in the ON position. I also would get shocked once when I was holding the distributor after she stopped turning the motor I did find that the positive line of the coil is hot when the key is in the ON position. Now the instructions said if I was to make my own harness to use 12 gauge wire, I did not have any on hand and used 18 gauge wire. Could it be that my harness is just not thick enough? Now I did the splice on the positive side of the coil to the brown and pink wire. I traced the wire and found that it comes out of the firewall on the driver side and goes across the engine bay over to the passenger side firewall to the fuse box with a splice in the line that goes to the old TFI module from the old distributor. Could I be spliced into the wrong wire? After referring to the directions I found I made a vacuum line mistake. I had the distributor hooked up the the vacuum tree, and needed to hook it up the carburetor above the carburetor plate, but this did not fix my problem. I hope I have given enough description to my current situation. If you need more details just ask.
Thanks,
Matt

 

[Mudhound]

I think that you are pulling power from the wrong wire. I will go check my 84 BII later today and see what wire I used.

 

[kimcrwbr1]

http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/2_8Duraspark.html
With the 84 yo only need key on hot to the coil and then run the green wire from the module green wire to coil neg. It is the first colored wiring diagram and just use the stock coil the square one.

 

[Danni84]

It is currently spliced into this brown/pink wire coming out of the grey square connector.

 

[kimcrwbr1]

The red/lt green stripe should be key on hot.

 

[Danni84]

Got it.

So in the end a number of things were wrong, but I have the satisfaction of getting it fixed myself. my positive wire is yellow under to hood. Like I said earlier, I do not have the stock wiring harness, and looking for colors did my no good. at one point the plug at the key came loose, another wiring issue fried a ICM. well once I got the wiring fixed and I had spark ,but it was way out of time. turned out to be a tooth off on my distributor and it is not timed at TDC (top dead center) it is at BCTC (5 mils Before Top Dead Center) than you make your adjustments while its running from there. anyways, thanks for the help.