1994 FJ-80, 4L-6-cyl gasoline engine.
Problem: When hot the engine misses at all speed ranges, stalls at idle, and behaves terribly . Check engine light went on periodically with code 12.
Action taken: Replaced spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor, checked all wiring for possible shortages. Took it to the dealers and they could not find the cause .
Finally I found it! I re-measured resistance on pick up coils and found that one of them shows drastically VARIABLE resistances when either hot or cold. I looked inside the distributor again and found that this poor coil developed some play on the inner rod, moved toward the rotating magnet and got grinded by it. I pushed the coil back, secured with a thread locker (did not have anything better), the connectivity got restored magically, and the engine runs better than ever .
However, because the coil was quite damaged, I need to replace it sooner or later. The dealers want to sell me a whole distributor assembly for $450 , whereas junk yards offer the same for $150 . IS THERE ANY PLACE TO GET JUST COILS? I do not want to mess with the replacement of the entire distributor because the replacement of pick-up coils is a 15 minutes task including the air gap adjustment (yes you can adjust it), which is essential when the temperature is around 40F below.
Any suggestion would be appreciated!
Problem: When hot the engine misses at all speed ranges, stalls at idle, and behaves terribly . Check engine light went on periodically with code 12.
Action taken: Replaced spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor, checked all wiring for possible shortages. Took it to the dealers and they could not find the cause .
Finally I found it! I re-measured resistance on pick up coils and found that one of them shows drastically VARIABLE resistances when either hot or cold. I looked inside the distributor again and found that this poor coil developed some play on the inner rod, moved toward the rotating magnet and got grinded by it. I pushed the coil back, secured with a thread locker (did not have anything better), the connectivity got restored magically, and the engine runs better than ever .
However, because the coil was quite damaged, I need to replace it sooner or later. The dealers want to sell me a whole distributor assembly for $450 , whereas junk yards offer the same for $150 . IS THERE ANY PLACE TO GET JUST COILS? I do not want to mess with the replacement of the entire distributor because the replacement of pick-up coils is a 15 minutes task including the air gap adjustment (yes you can adjust it), which is essential when the temperature is around 40F below.
Any suggestion would be appreciated!