My Squire stalled today.

So, I jumped into the '88 Country Squire this morning to head to work and about 15 miles out of town while going 45mph the engine quit. Instantly. It didn't make a sound, no bangs, whizes,kerplunks or chigga chigga...psssst.

I coasted it to the side of the road, turned on the flashers and tried to restart it. It just kept turning over but didn't even try to start. I had it flat bedded back to the house and jumped into the Sable to get to work.

I haven't even popped the hood yet, as its extremely wet and dark out. I plan on looking into it this weekend.

What should I look for?

1.It has a full tank of gas
2.engine turns over fine
3.Never had a problem with this car before. No warning just....kaput.

If I remember correctly, 80's Fords had a problem with Ignition Modules. Does this sound like that?

:banghead3:

 

Fuel line filter?
Ignition, coil or ignition wires?
Broken distributor cap or magnetic pickup inside the cap?
Broken distributor shaft?

Broken wire from the ignition switch to the DSII, Distributor, or Coil.

The DSII modules do break down, but thats really rare.

I think one or two of the vacuum switches also enable/disable part of the 12 volt circuitry to the ignition system.

Start at the cap and work back to the ignition switch. Its something that failed/snapped while running, so vibration must've done a dirty on it.

 

most likely suspect is that stupid Distributor brain..(6x6 alum box on fender well)

check for spark...if none...then its that POS

can ya tell ive had too many of those....

 

I think I'd pull a plug and check for spark. Maybe the coil failed.

 

Lotta good tips here for ya, SDon. Likely a spark problem that gave up. Your description was a good one....like you just shut the engine off. Check for spark first.

 

Can you imagine if we had to use a Model T hand crank on today's cars? Our chiropractors would be on the stockmarket!

 

Being an 88 there's the TFI module. Could be on the radiator support or attached to the distributor. They are cheap and that's exactly how they fail.

Suddenly poof!

Ford had recalled upwards of 5 million cars for this years ago. Just make sure you disconnect the battery before replacing and use plenty of the proper electronic grease to insulate. Most come with grease. For the life of me I can't recall what it's called. It's made for electronics and I use it all the time on my spark plug boots.

 

I think it's called "proper electronic grease", TB.

 

Oh very helpful silverfox.

Oh I thought of it. Dielectric. That's the stuff.:banghead3:

 

SEE ! I helped you remember!

 

Did you know that we have 50,000 ideas per day, stored in 36 billion brain cells? You'd think there'd be some way to clean out the clutter and just keep useful stuff, like info about grease!

 

I think my brain cell count is down to about 12 or 13.

 

Talk about a timely hi-jack! I was just on one of our National papers' sites and there's a Live Chat with some EggSpurt about training the Aging Brain! No, I'm not kidding. For Business people, no less.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...-for-training-the-aging-brain/article1430038/

 

I'm not a mechanic or tech by any stretch of the imagination, but you may want to check to make sure the engine's getting fuel. When you crank it, can you smell gas? If so, you know it's getting there but if not, perhaps the fuel pump or other component of the fuel delivery system is kaput.
Good luck. I hope whatever it is is not too serious or costly.

 

Heck ya fuel pump, and you probably have a fuse box that would have a relay for that as well.