I'll start this off by saying I have been through the no start checklist here several times and still can't pinpoint the issue.
Here's what happened. I was driving the car and it started misfiring. I've had distributor issues several times in the past so figured the tfi was dying again. But this time it sounded like something metallic hitting, so I pulled off the road and popped the hood. The noise was coming from the distributor. I walked around to turn the car off and it died. Pulled the cap off the distributor and the metal trigger wheel under the rotor was very loose, the screws had backed out and it was hitting the sensor inside, that was the noise I was hearing. This was a duralast gold distributor from autozone. I know those parts are not great but after having issues with several oem distributors leaving me stranded a local mustang shop recommended this and the car had been running great for the past 6 months. I re tightened the screws and tried to start the car but no luck car won't start. It will crank for about 5 seconds then hiccup but that's it. Also, I noticed the tachometer needle was stuck way to the right past 7000 now. So, I thought maybe the sensor inside the distributor got damaged. I had the car towed to my work and pulled the distributor and took it back to autozone since it had a lifetime warranty and exchanged it for another one. Dropped that in and still no start. So, I grabbed my tow dolly and truck after work and brought car home to work on it. Here's what I confirmed
It has good spark from the coil
It has spark at each one of the cylinders
It has 42 psi of fuel pressure at the rail and pump is running
All the injectors are firing I checked them with a noid light
I tried the new autozone distributor and another oem I had at the house that I know works and still no start. And yes, they are timed correctly I double checked that
I tried starting fluid and still nothing
Checked the ignition switch power at the coil and it's working fine
So now I'm thinking did the computer die? I removed the cover and 2 of the 3 capacitors inside were leaking so I replaced all 3 of them and still no fire. I borrowed another A9L computer to try and still the same thing, cranks for 5 or so seconds, hiccups then nothing.
Since everything checked out on the list, I didn't really look into anything on the no spark, no fuel list so maybe I should dig through all that stuff?
I'm not sure what caused the tachometer to die and the needle to stick way to the right when all this happened, but would a faulty tach cause it not to start?
When that wheel inside the distributor came loose, I'm thinking it caused something else to short out, that's why the car died but I can't seem to figure it out. Any thoughts on this?
Here's what happened. I was driving the car and it started misfiring. I've had distributor issues several times in the past so figured the tfi was dying again. But this time it sounded like something metallic hitting, so I pulled off the road and popped the hood. The noise was coming from the distributor. I walked around to turn the car off and it died. Pulled the cap off the distributor and the metal trigger wheel under the rotor was very loose, the screws had backed out and it was hitting the sensor inside, that was the noise I was hearing. This was a duralast gold distributor from autozone. I know those parts are not great but after having issues with several oem distributors leaving me stranded a local mustang shop recommended this and the car had been running great for the past 6 months. I re tightened the screws and tried to start the car but no luck car won't start. It will crank for about 5 seconds then hiccup but that's it. Also, I noticed the tachometer needle was stuck way to the right past 7000 now. So, I thought maybe the sensor inside the distributor got damaged. I had the car towed to my work and pulled the distributor and took it back to autozone since it had a lifetime warranty and exchanged it for another one. Dropped that in and still no start. So, I grabbed my tow dolly and truck after work and brought car home to work on it. Here's what I confirmed
It has good spark from the coil
It has spark at each one of the cylinders
It has 42 psi of fuel pressure at the rail and pump is running
All the injectors are firing I checked them with a noid light
I tried the new autozone distributor and another oem I had at the house that I know works and still no start. And yes, they are timed correctly I double checked that
I tried starting fluid and still nothing
Checked the ignition switch power at the coil and it's working fine
So now I'm thinking did the computer die? I removed the cover and 2 of the 3 capacitors inside were leaking so I replaced all 3 of them and still no fire. I borrowed another A9L computer to try and still the same thing, cranks for 5 or so seconds, hiccups then nothing.
Since everything checked out on the list, I didn't really look into anything on the no spark, no fuel list so maybe I should dig through all that stuff?
I'm not sure what caused the tachometer to die and the needle to stick way to the right when all this happened, but would a faulty tach cause it not to start?
When that wheel inside the distributor came loose, I'm thinking it caused something else to short out, that's why the car died but I can't seem to figure it out. Any thoughts on this?