Here– take my Money!

   This month, my article will once again stray from the safety realm a bit.  Well, with the exception of possibly the safety of your bank account that is.  What is it, you ask?  Well, throwing money at your vehicle in the attempt to fix it.  Not literally, mind you.  I’m sure a barrage of loose change would do nothing positive except for possibly relieving some built up stress.  I am referring to buying new parts and replacing them in hopes to find and fix a problem.

   Unfortunately, I resorted to this little trick myself a few weeks ago when my Ranger decided to lay down.  It started by just running bad and cutting out.  At the time, I noticed the tachometer jumping around and acting quite strange, but I thought nothing of it.  I simply thought that I had some electrical component that was cooked.

   I started off with looking the engine over.  I found nothing noticeable wrong or damaged.  Especially with the sudden onset of the condition, I would have assumed I should have been able to see something out of the ordinary.  At this point, however, the truck would still run.  Granted, not well, but I could still move it.  So, since I didn’t find anything obvious, I went to bed that day, hoping the problem would go away...yeah right!

   Wednesday night, I got in the truck to leave for work.  However, the truck had other ideas.  I cranked the engine, but it didn’t fire up.  Well, with no time to work on it then, I got into Lisa’s car and went to spend another lovely evening at Jasper Rubber.

   My intentions for that weekend, as it was to be a nice four day vacation, was to spend some quality time working on the OTHER truck.  Thursday was spent checking the obvious.  First, I made sure there was fuel.  Yes, that was there.  So, the pumps seemed to be doing their job, and I hadn’t goofed and run the tank dry.

   With the confirmation of fuel, I then shifted to the other main ingredient to a running engine, spark.  With a spare plug and wire, I plugged it in to a terminal on the distributor cap, grounded the plug body, and proceeded to crank the engine, but there was no spark.  Next, I pulled the coil wire and attached the test wire and plug.  The same thing happened again, nothing.  Well, at least I knew that it could now be anything from a loose wire to an expensive computer.

   So, my next plan of attack would be what I thought to be the obvious thing on a TFI equipped Ford, the notorious TFI module itself.  Lisa picked up the little gray, $45 bastard of a new part for me Thursday morning, along with the special tool that it requires to be changed.  After a few minutes of playing contortionist under the hood, the new TFI module was in place.  I then turned the key, but the starter only spun the engine, the ignition problem was not yet cured.

   With the truck still not running, and Lisa and her car both at work, I had no way of getting more parts.  Also, all of the attempts to start the engine had worn the battery down.  So, I made the one-mile walk to my parent’s house to get Dad’s truck and the battery charger.

   My next thought was to replace the coil.  The main reason being that it is the next easiest part to swap out.  So, I put the charger on the battery and went to Jasper for a new coil.  I returned a bit later, new part in hand and the bank account another $15 lighter.  Within a few minutes, the new coil was installed.  I then tried my luck with this guess, but once again, the little 2.9L would not fire.  Being that I was once again burdened with a massive can’t-fix-the-truck headache, I called Thursday a total loss and gave up.  Day one of my vacation, and now $60 down the toilet.

   Day two started out with the battery once again on the charger.  My next guess was that the pick-up in the distributor went out.  I went to Jasper to talk to the happy parts store guy and give out yet some more cash.  I drove home with the new pick-up in hand, while the parts store counted yet another $15 or so of my money.  I then pulled the distributor and went up to the shop where Lisa works.  After a little time, and a good deal of problems, the new pick-up was installed in the distributor.  However, as I put the little gear back on the shaft, I didn’t realize that it would only line up one way.  I got it close and proceeded to hammer the roll-pin in it.  As I got the pin nearly through, I noticed that the holes weren’t going to line up properly.

   After several minutes of labor, the gear was once again removed from the distributor shaft.  After filing the burs down, I once again installed the gear, only this time I made sure it was correctly orientated.  Now, with the

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