I bought a 1987 F150 4.9L Dual Tank, about a month ago. I took it to the mechanic shop...got it all nice and cleaned up, and everything checked out. I drove the vehicle for about 2weeks, and one day, I went to start it up...turned the key...and, the starter just turned over and over and over, but didn't fire-up at all. I sprayed starter fluid in the intake(remembered that usually works with old cars)...nothing. I tried turning her over and over and over...to no avail. The starter seems to be working...there was fuel(you could smell it). THEN, after yelling and kicking the nearest cat, I turned her over, and she started right up. She did this to me several times, so I took her to my mechanic...she stayed there a week...and didn't act up once. The mechanic ran tests, and tried letting her sit all day/night...and she started right up. I went and picked up the truck, and she started right up...ran for a week, and now, she's sitting in her parking space again dead cold. I can smell fuel, I can hear the pump engage, I have a great battery, but the starter just turns over and over and over, without doing a thing. I read somewhere about a TFI module on the distributor...I really don't want to throw money into this Truck...but some possible leads as to the issue, might be nice. Thank you.

 

Most likely it is the pickup in the distributor. Possibly the coil or the ignition module bolted to the distributor. You might want to try the coil and the ignition module first, as they are easier to replace. You need a special tool to remove the ignition module from the side of the distributor.

To replace the pickup in the distributor, you have to pull the distributor and disassemble it. You could just replace the distributor with a rebuilt, but rebuilt distributors have a poor reputation. If it comes to that Rockauto may have a new distributor left for abour 200 dollars.

If the engine just absolutely won't start anymore, you can get the 3 components I mentioned tested instead of throwing parts at it. If these ignition components are intermittent(engines sometimes runs) it is hard to test these because if they are in a live state when tested they will probably test good.

 

I agree with what 88n94 is telling you. I received similar advice from him recently which was spot on. It can certainly be frustrating when a problem won't present itself when your trying to diagnose it. It sounds like a distributor problem based on what I experienced.