intermitant starting problem

[JimTMich]

Why does my car not start sometimes and then if a few mintes fire up like nothing happened?

I go out to the car at lunch yesterday and it just cranks and cranks and cranks, but not a hint of trying to fire. I check fuel pressure, fine, I hear the pump running, good, I wiggle all the sensor connections I see, nothing loose, crank crank crank nothing. say a quick prayer and it fires right up and works fine the rest of the day.

This moring I go to start the car to go to work and it just cranks and cranks and cranks, not a hint of trying to fire. I hear the fuel pump. so I check for engine codes using hte check engine light and jumper in the eec test socket. I don't get anything I can decifer out of the check engine light. 133 133 and that's it.
so I put a spark plug on the coil ht lead and set it on the intake manifold and turn the car over and see all kinds of spark, so I re attach the coil and it fires right up.

What's going on? is it ignition, does the tif or coil do an intermittant problem?

This happened 2 other times this summer and once last year.


stock pump, stock ignition, 113000 miles 95 gts manual. only mods are an intake, tb and k&n.

Jim

 

[zenboy99]

Hall effect sensor. Its a common problem with our cars. Its an easy swap, it sits in the distributor. ~$30 thru Ford.

 

[JimTMich]

Hall effect sensor. Its a common problem with our cars. Its an easy swap, it sits in the distributor. ~$30 thru Ford.

O.K. swaped out the sensor and the ignition module while I was at it, and a new coil will be here tomorrow, just in case.
Thanks!!!

I'll update this post if it dies again.

 

[HISSIN50]

have you considered that there is corrosion or build up on the coil-wire terminal itself? sometimes the act of removing the wire and reinstalling it can break lose the resistant materials. ditto for your earlier (eventual) restart - you eventually broke through the resistance after some cranking.

might ohm out your wires while at it.

just some things to check or consider.
good luck.

 

[JimTMich]

have you considered that there is corrosion or build up on the coil-wire terminal itself? sometimes the act of removing the wire and reinstalling it can break lose the resistant materials. ditto for your earlier (eventual) restart - you eventually broke through the resistance after some cranking.

might ohm out your wires while at it.

just some things to check or consider.
good luck.

didn't check the low voltage connection at the coil, the hv terminals have all been cleaned and all wires replaced along with cap and rotor and plugs a little while ago and I lubed them up so they are in good shape still.

 

[fiveohh94gt]

i agree with zenboy, had the same problem and it was the hall effect sensor (or stator or pick-up coil) it has lots of names. i just said the heck with it and bought a new MSD pro-billet distributor