The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

intermittent ignition coil trouble

Festiva ignition coil FordToday was very wet. Constant rain is just what I needed to troubleshoot the intermittent electrical trouble on the 1990 Ford Festiva.

Luckily today was moist enough to provoke the problem, which is the engine turning over but not starting, or when it does start it sometimes stalls.

It seems like I fixed it by unplugging the main distributor wire from the ignition coil and firmly re-seating it back into place. I drove it all afternoon in the pouring rain with no other problems. I think I may add a bead of silicone to the connector cover to decrease the chance of any more moisture getting inside. The real test will be to see if the problem doesn't pop up again next week or next month.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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You might want to replace that coil wire. A bad wire will in damp weather or at night have electricity dancing on its outside.
Comment by Errol Wed Feb 18 20:40:25 2009
We went out and checked it at night when we were trying to diagnose the problem --- no sparks. Of course, that was during dry weather when we couldn't get any symptoms either....
Comment by anna Thu Feb 19 14:25:39 2009





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