3FE distributor - both pickup coils failed at once? (1 Viewer)

[sail2fast]

It's been car suicide around our house recently with 5 cars breaking down in the past few weeks (we own lots of cars because they are old). Today it was our trusty '92 Land Cruiser ("Lucy")- which died while my wife was driving to work (her Audi S4 blew a water pump last Friday). It was running fine yesterday.

It started by running poorly on the freeway, with no power (only could reach 45mph). After pulling off at an exit, it would turn over but not restart.

I got it towed home, found no spark, code 12 from the CEL, and got to the testing pickup coils on the distributor--both of which read 0 Ohms. Seems kind of strange for both coils to fail at once... One of them is a little rusty looking, the other looks fine (visually). The wiring looks fine and undisturbed.

Anyone ever seen anything like this? Since the recommendation is to "replace the distributor", and they seem expensive and hard to find, I want to make sure before I spring for a new distributor.

Sadly we are down to 3 working cars (the three oldest: '74 914, '82 Saab 900, and a '91 Ford van), so I'd like to get Lucy back up and running soon. Sources of a 3FE distributor in the SF Bay Area would be great!

 

[sail2fast]

I did some more poking around and uncovered the splice in the G- wire inside the distributor. Between the splice (G-) and NE is 220 Ohms (within spec), between the splice and G is 0 Ohms - short (this is the rusty looking pickup, also). HOWEVER to complicate things, between the splice and G- connector pin is open (perhaps when the coil shorted, it burned up the common ground?).

For those of you following at home, somehow the white wire (G-) from the connector changes to yellow when it goes through the rubber boot at the distributor body.

Either way I need a distributor or pickup coils. And I need to go to work now...

 

[jwilber]

I I ordered one from 1 AAuto and if I remember correctly it was less than $200

 

[jwilber]

It's been in my 91 4 better than 2 years with no issues

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS]

If you are running an aftermarket distributor cap without the vacuum lines connected to it, chunk it and order an OEM one. Running a non-OEM cap without the vacuum ports sounds good but for pickup coil corrosion it is bad news. Mr. T vented the cap for that reason. Just FYI.