1989 ford festiva wont start.?

[FestYboy]

woah... 86.8 ohms on the harness!? please show or tell me how you got that number. also the secondary coil numbers aren't high enough. you may have several issues here.

[Dom]

Ok harness I stuck meter prongs across the two and got 86.8

[FestYboy]

ok, that's no joy. what you need to do is disconnect the wires at the ICM and then test end to end. BUT, given that you have SOMETHING there, that's a good sign the ICM is crapped out internaly, but more testing is in order.

i'll get back o this in a few hours, GTG.

[Dom]

IMG_2460.jpg

[Dom]

I am sorry across i got 86.8 ohms. From icm wires end to end i rung them out to harness and tested 0.2 ohms on both of them

[Dom]

IMG_2463.jpg
From ICM - positive to negative reading is 515 ohms ( and reading each time seems to be dropping, normal?)
And readings from A to B are 0.922

[FestYboy]

ok, one last place to test: the 2 prongs on the pick up coil in the dizzy ( they sit opposite the ICM A and B pins on the rotor housing)

the + to - reading is going to be wierd with a DVOM. best way to check that once everything else tests out is to take a test light and stick the pointy end into the ICM pin of the coil harness plug. (with the key on, one wire will be hot, the other is the ICM wire which acts as a ground) then clamp the test light onto the + terminal of the battery. now crank the engine.... the test light should blink at you. if it doesn't, you have a bad ICM.

[Dom]

am i doing this this with the ICM still disconnected or connect ICM back onto dist. ?

[Dom]

and do i test the hot (12v) or ground to the positive side of the battery?

[Dom]

ok here it is, i tested the pick up coil plug (where the icm gets connected to) and stuck pointy end in one and the clamp to positive side on battery it lit up then when i turned the key and cranked the engine the light when out and was NOT blinking, the same went for the other plug on the harness as well. Now this was tested with ICM out of distributor and ignition coil harness end disconnected. Did i perform this test properly?

[FestYboy]

ah i see, this test is ment to be performed with everything hooked up EXCEPT the coil plug. the light goes from the hot side of the battery to the switching side of the coil plug.

[Dom]

IMG_2460.jpg Ok so i hooked everything back up ICM,wires,rotor,cap, the only thing that was left out was the ignition coil harness plug (just a reference in the pic to show if this is the switching side) i took my test light and performed the test on both hot and ground (dont know which one was the switching side ) the hot 12v side just went off when i started the engine, and the ground side started flashing when i started the engine.

[FestYboy]

ok, when you got the light to go out and stay out, that means that your ignition power source it good (12v on both sides of the load will cancel themselves out). the other wirte flashing means that your ICM is working as it should. SO, what does this all mean??? you have a bad coil.... the field is generated in the primary winding of the coil, but when the ground is taken away... the field has nowhere to go because the windings on the secondary aren't sufficient enough to boost the voltage to make the spark....

adapting an aftermarket canister style coil is rather easy, even without hacking up the harness.

[Dom]

Can you recommend one?

[Dom]

ok, when you got the light to go out and stay out, that means that your ignition power source it good (12v on both sides of the load will cancel themselves out). the other wirte flashing means that your ICM is working as it should. SO, what does this all mean??? you have a bad coil.... the field is generated in the primary winding of the coil, but when the ground is taken away... the field has nowhere to go because the windings on the secondary aren't sufficient enough to boost the voltage to make the spark....

adapting an aftermarket canister style coil is rather easy, even without hacking up the harness.

Can you recommend one?