One of those days... No spark

Wife calls... tells me the Bird "just died" on her. So I don't really know if there was a problem leading up to it quitting on her. Quick diagnostics.... I can hear the fuel pump cycle when the key is turned on. The cam is turning when trying to start. No spark coming from the coil. Coil is original, TFI was replaced around 100K miles ago, and not sure about the PIP. I haven't pulled the cap off to see if the rotor is spinning, but I'm just guessing that isn't the problem. If its not a rotor/cap/distributor issue, I need to know which route to try first. I'm on a TIGHT budget right now, with no spare parts around, and no code reader. In which order should I try to replace the coil, TFI, and PIP? Any help appreciated.
Bill

TFI is the most likely, especially with 100K on it. Be sure and use the heat conducting grease.

I "might" be in luck. Bought a parts car two years ago and the guy gave me ALL of his parts/pieces. Sure enough, there in a lonely box is a brand spanking new TFI. Never had to change one before... how much of a PITA is it?

Bill

When mine just died while driving, it was the dizzy and aux gears. Pull the cap and hope the rotor turns when cranking!

TFI is pretty simple... hardest part is removing the bolts... sockets don't quite fit in the hole and reach the bolt head. They do make a tool which is a thin wall socket with a knob handle that makes it quite simple. You will want to pull the distributor for easiest access.

The coil off almost any Ford of that era should work so that should be easy to cross check.

I also would make sure the teeth on the dist gear and aux shaft are good. After that I would look at the TFI/PIP

Update- Turned out to be the TFI. Got it changed out, back up running and timing reset in less than an hour. Now I just need to go buy my wife an anniversary card. Thanks for the help guys.

Bill

IIRC the bolt on it is 7/32 I took and gently ground the edges down on one I had, How many times do you ACTUALLY use that size, LOL! Did you put heat sink compund on the new one? Make sure you do the Pip eventually, as that is usually the root cause of the TFI craapping out...

I actually bought one of those tools years ago for my old escort that liked to fry TFI's. Luckily I still have it in my box.

I finally broke down and put in a new distributor last night. It just seemed easier to do that than pull the whole thing apart to do the PIP. The fact that the distributor had a cap bolt snapped off in one of the holes (from a tune-up about 100K miles ago) made it a pretty easy decision. Worst part of the whole process was trying to find the distributor hold-down bolt after I dropped it. It ended up lying on the motor mount and was almost impossible to see.

Bill