Thanks to everyone for your help! Turns out the distributor pickup coil was bad... or Advance Auto gave me the wrong distributor. Advance replaced the distributor with a remanufactured MotorCraft like my original, and we're rolling.
I put in fresh MotorCraft plugs today, but still have a serious miss in there.
How do I determine if I have a fuel or electrical problem at this point?
Well if your engine is carb'ed it's probably a sparkplug wire or a crossed sparkwire. If's it's fuel injected it could also be a wire as well as an injector.
Just pull off the spark plug wires one at a time and check to see it the miss gets worse or stays the same. If it stays the same that is the cylinder that is affected. Make sure you use a set of insulated spark plug wire pliers for the job, otherwise your hair will stand on end!
Originally posted by GT50 Just pull off the spark plug wires one at a time and check to see it the miss gets worse or stays the same. If it stays the same that is the cylinder that is affected.
That's the first thing I tried. Missed, no matter which wire was off. Maybe the coil wire, though.
What about fuel issues? What's the protocol for determining if I have a fuel flow problem? Can I remove and clean the fuel injectors (CFI system)? My mechanic said he cleaned them in August, but it never did run smooth.
I hooked up a tachometer, and see that the RPMs drop for a split second with every skip.
Does this say anthing about whether I'm losing spark or fuel?
Last edited by ScottHalliday; 11-15-2002 at 01:37 AM.
I did NOT get CODE 41 as a memory code during the KOEO (key on engine off) test, which would mean SYSTEM WAS LEAN FOR 15 SECONDS OR MORE (no HO2S switching).
Does this mean it's only running lean for short periods?
Would this cause my misses?
Also noticed some gray smoke from the PCV hose when I kick the throttle a bit.
Last edited by 85VicWagonGuy; 11-16-2002 at 02:34 AM.
I have a 85 GT and had a similar problem. It was electrical. But It might be adifferant problem than yours. Have to tried checking the simple things like the fuel filter, or what kind of shape is your carb in? My problem was the ingintion box located to the left side of the battery. It is a little silver box. After I tried and upgraded evrything else and still had the problem I changed that and the problem is no more. (neither is the box. I got ride of it and went to a complete MSD system.) Hope this helps you out a little.
I would stamp where your distributor is with a chisel so you can always go back to that timing mark and try adjusting the timing back and forth to see if it helps the situation at all. If you put it too high , it will smell of fuel and chug a little at the start, if it is too low it will chug all around, just play with it.
I must say, that timing system they setup is pretty lame.
The wagon ran well today... still a little miss, but not like before.
AND...
KOER test gave NO CODES!!! :c)
KOEO test gave usual CODE 88, but I found that the throttle kicker solenoid seems to be shot. No continuity between the terminals, whereas I get 50 ohms between the terminals of the other 3 solenoids. Maybe that's all that is.
'85 302 - Running Rough 
