Hello All,
My thanks to Doug, Bill, Mike, Jerry (s) CRWLR and Old Crow, and more that
I'm sure to miss.
Yesterday I saw the front end of the old girl headed away down the street in
the embarrassing pose behind a tow truck. I'd spent a week on her, following
your excellent suggestions, tracing wires, cleaning this and that connector
and spending a horrible hour+ underneath her changing out the CPS. All to no
avail.
Short and sweet end of it all, she's back in the driveway now chipper and
starting as good as new. The findings were a 'weak' wire, the ground, from
the PCM to the coil, and a coil that didn't do well under load. This is same
coil that was okay on a bench test.
My ohming out the ground wire showed no problem but with load it apparently
dropped enough to kill the spark. When that was replaced, the coil still
gave a weak, orange spark. No new coil handy, one was obtained from the junk
yard out back of the shop for $15. Total mech. bill, with tow, $126. And I
have a spare CPS now too! (grin)
New tool in my box? A 12 volt test light. Seems straight ohming doesn't
always give you the whole story. One of the Jerry's said "get a coil and
throw it in"! That may have worked Jerry. Right on the mark.
Only thing left for me is to check over the schematics and see if that
ground wire has a common connection with the ground to anything else. Never
know, it may be about to go too.
Anyway, all you guys were astoundingly helpful and I really appreciate this
group. I learned a lot and frankly, enjoy the old Jeep even more now. She
has her problems still, but we'll work through it. Kind of the way you get
with a car after 225,000 miles I guess. Hell, she's just barely broke in!
God Bless.
Denny

 

D did pass the time by typing:

> Anyway, all you guys were astoundingly helpful and I really appreciate this
> group. I learned a lot and frankly, enjoy the old Jeep even more now. She
> has her problems still, but we'll work through it. Kind of the way you get
> with a car after 225,000 miles I guess. Hell, she's just barely broke in!

Glad to hear your problem got solved and everything is running well. Like you
said, got spare parts now. :) FWIW, coils can be tricky. My old C-10 chevy
like to drove me nuts till I found that little pinprick under the rotor.

--
DougW

 

D did pass the time by typing:

> Anyway, all you guys were astoundingly helpful and I really appreciate this
> group. I learned a lot and frankly, enjoy the old Jeep even more now. She
> has her problems still, but we'll work through it. Kind of the way you get
> with a car after 225,000 miles I guess. Hell, she's just barely broke in!

Glad to hear your problem got solved and everything is running well. Like you
said, got spare parts now. :) FWIW, coils can be tricky. My old C-10 chevy
like to drove me nuts till I found that little pinprick under the rotor.

--
DougW

 

D did pass the time by typing:

> Anyway, all you guys were astoundingly helpful and I really appreciate this
> group. I learned a lot and frankly, enjoy the old Jeep even more now. She
> has her problems still, but we'll work through it. Kind of the way you get
> with a car after 225,000 miles I guess. Hell, she's just barely broke in!

Glad to hear your problem got solved and everything is running well. Like you
said, got spare parts now. :) FWIW, coils can be tricky. My old C-10 chevy
like to drove me nuts till I found that little pinprick under the rotor.

--
DougW