I think before swapping parts between the car & truck I would try that spare module to see what happens if you did not have the problem before.
Does that after market dist. use the GM type module? I did not look that close at it other than it is a small body dist. IIRC
Dave ----

 

In my spare time this week I have been tinkering with the old girl to see what I could find.



As you can see, no way for the choke to come on. It is hard wired open.


Since cyl #1 scored poorly on my compression test, I figured I would take off the valve cover just to have a look at the rockers. No problems were noticed here.

But I figured as long as I had the valve cover off, I might as well clean it and put some fresh paint on it. And you can't do one side and not the other, so I tackled the passenger side next.


Very interesting, when I got to the passenger side, I noticed this cut in the spark plug wire for cyl #8. Now these wires are new, I put them on last November when I did my 10 year tune-up. I don't know how I didn't notice this. I messaged the seller on ebay saying -I bought this in October, installed it in November, and been dealing with an intermittent misfire since December. Is there a warranty on this product?- and of course, no response! After 6 months who can blame him.



As you can see there is nothing in the engine bay near that wire to grab it, rub against it, or cut it.

While cleaning and painting the valve covers, I gave all the other wires a once-over. I did not see any more damaged wires, however I found spark plugs loose on #4, #7, and #8. Between that and the cut in the plug wire, it's no wonder I had a slight misfire at idle. However I am not sure if any of this explains why it will suddenly cut out, die, and then refuse to idle on restart. Once I get it all back together I will take it for a little ride and see how it acts.

 

I hate to tell you what I think that is from if you have not guessed by this time?



YEP mouse or rat eating wires!
Even more so when you pointed out there is nothing around it to cause that.
Time to stick 1 of your cats in with the car when it is in storage
I have a few mouse traps if you want to set them up.
Dave ----

 

Wow, mouse never entered my mind! I guess that is possible. I have not seen any other indications. I may put a couple of mouse traps in the storage area and see if I catch anything.



When I put my nice freshly painted valve covers on, I decided to do something about this badly pitted chrome breather. I keep saying I am going to order one but I never do.



I scrubbed it clean and sanded it with some 120 grit, but damn that pitting and old chrome is hard, I barely got much off. After some primer to hopefully help the paint stick a little better, I sprayed it with some black wrinkle paint. Oh well it's better than it was when I started.

Took the Mustang for a drive, it ran great. Of course that doesn't prove anything because it always run great, until it doesn't

I'll have to go out a few more times, making sure to let it run long enough to get up to temp, and go to places where I need to sit at a stop light, etc, to see how it acts.

For the record, here are my idle RPM's

In drive with my foot on the brake, idle is around 550.


In park letting it idle, it goes up to about 650.

 

The idle RPM looks good both in & out of gear.
If it happens check the tach if it is moving when cranking.
I am thinking if the module is acting up you my not have spark and the coil not getting a signal.
If no signal then to figure out why module or pickup coil??

On my phone so hard to see the cap but the valve covers look good 👍
Dave ----

 

I had a wire like that on my stang one time. Was cause by the factory running the wires so they were rubbing on the exhaust manifold on mine though. Didnt know it till i had pulled the wires to change them. Had developed a bad miss from it grounding on the manifold. Felt like i had a bad tank of gas everytime i had to power up hills. When i replaced the wires i ran them a different route around the manifold than the factory did.

 

So I did make it out the garage with the truck last weekend, promptly broke my fresh Transmission 🤦‍♂️







Broke the intermediate band, did some reading and looks like the Servo I had installed in the rebuild is known for being to tight and needing to be machined. Took servo out, found it to be very tight. So I'm going to have it machined down an put a new band in it. I'll be doing the work myself this time instead of paying a builder to screw it up again... 🙄

 

That sucks.
If it makes you feel better I towed my drag car 10 hours 1 way to make 2 1/4 miles passes and the fresh built auto trans did not shift.
The next year made 2 more passes, trans shifted this time, and the motor lost oil psi.
Aint racing fun
Dave ----

 

That sucks Larry, I saw on facebook that you had taken it out and I wondered what you were going to find.
Dave look at the bright side; if you get into racing again you will only have to trailer it 30 minutes away to have a failure!
Shawn mine aren't anywhere near the headers, or anything. I think Dave was right about mouse teeth because it looks like something done with sharp objects.
Oh **** that reminds me, I put the car back in storage after yesterdays car show and forgot that I wanted to put a mousetrap in with it! I should do that today.

 

Well I did atleast take it to the local track, on a off weekend, and it was only 15 minutes away. Time before that when i tried testing, is when i broke the cam pin, bending a couple valves 🤦‍♂️

 

Well, I'm back with more Mustang intermittent problems! I got her out and took her for a drive today. I went down 210, when I passed Dave's house I didn't see the red and white truck so I didn't honk my horn. Went up to Grocery Boy Jr on Mt Pleasant Ch Rd to get a BBQ chicken plate from a food truck. Actually was a pickup truck with some coolers and a fold out table and a small grill, but still it was pretty good. On the way home I stopped off at Sheetz to gas up, and when I was ready to leave it started acting up. Hit the key and it fires right to life, then dies. Did it again, same thing - fired up and then died. So I pressed the gas pedal about halfway down and she roared up a bit and let off the throttle, seemed to be idling fine. So the rest of the way home I was running through different scenarios in my head, and one thing stuck out. What if I am not getting enough voltage? I know old cars use to run 8 volts to the coil, what if I don't have a full 12?

Well when I got home I let her cool down, then checked voltage. I see 12.3v with key on and engine off, 14.0 with engine running, so everything is fine there. I'm sure I addressed that 25 years ago and just couldn't remember for sure. So I decided, next step is to swap out the new HEI module for the old one I took out last year.

The module is this chrome thing that hangs off the side of the distributor.


When I took off the cover, I don't see anything wrong, visually. All the wires are attached as expected.


So I swap the old one and new one around. But that was about it for me as it was time for dinner. Later after we got back, I decided I would take her for a little drive, or maybe just go bring her back to the storage place. But she won't start! Just crank and crank and crank. Obviously I am not getting any spark. I'm sure it's possible the one went bad, but that seems a little sketch. I got to wondering if it is something do with the grounding of the module. Like maybe the screws aren't tight enough. It is very hard to get it lined up to get the screws started, so I dug through my screws and found 2 that where a little longer. Maybe not snugged down as hard as it needed?

Just for ***** and grins, I decided if I take this thing off again, I am putting in a new module. That's when things went south. When I bought this distributor it was called a "Small Cap HEI" and since Ford distributors with GM HEI modules are so common, I have always assumed that's what was in mine. But it's not, a GM HEI has 2 terminals on each side, at an angle. These are 4 in a row. So I got the part number off of it and went to googling. I found the manufacturers website, Mobiletron, but searching by this part number it says "no data found". They have 28 pages of ignition modules but none with this part number! I found another hit for it on google, and it says used in Ford Fairmont 1979-1982. I highly doubted that, but I went to Autozone website and the Fairmont uses the traditional Ford Ignition Module that is seem on the inner fender of every Ford from that era. Another hit says 1985-1994 Toyota Corolla. So I check for that, the ignition module looks much much different. Somehow I got a cross-reference to a Bosch part number which seems promising. I'd prefer a Bosch unit to a Mobiletron, I mean at least I have HEARD of Bosch before! But it seems all the ebay sellers for this item are in Australia. I'd surely love to find a compatible vehicle that this would have come on, so that I could just walk into any auto parts store and order a replacement. The one I bought last year came from ebay as part of a tune-up kit for my distributor; cap, rotor, and module. If I go that route again then I am waiting for a week before it comes in the mail.



The part is labeled as such
IG-B017C M0820
U9029028-C 2775
MOBILETRON

The Bosch cross-reference part is BIM024

Now of course I am out of daylight so I'll have to rethink of a plan of attack tomorrow.

 

This probably isn't what you're going to want to hear, and definitely not a cheap route but... toss that ebay distributor in the garbage and either spend the money on a DUI hei setup, or a MSD RTR distributor and never worry about it again. The cheap "chineese ebay brand" HEIs are known for intermittent issues, and especially spark scatter.

However the gas station incident where you held your foot on the gas makes me think that was carb related rather than ignition.

 

Well yesterday I had a Tranny party..... but not the new school kind, mine only involved me, a C6 and alot of cussing. The more I looked the worse it got and the more I wanted to drive to Wilmington and beat the man who built it with it.



For starters had my buddy at DRB machine and fab up in VA take a total of .014" out of the large ring gland, now the servo piston actually slides properly.



The band that came out with the broken clasp, beside the new replacement one I was installing. Both very dry, however theyre supposed to be soaked about a hour prior to installing, according to a guy I work with who builds power glides, even after setting for a year or so, it wouldn't of dried up that much.



Had to change Servo apply levers also, everyone including the servo manufacturer recommend the E lever, the builder decided to just leave the factory D lever in there. Ratios are D- 1.95 and E 1.85. Apparently with the R servo anything over a E applies to hard unless you're making 1500hp.

Also ended up finding a thrust washer improperly installed causing the transmission to be extra tight. It had bent the lock tabs so I straightened those, and installed it properly. So now you can turn the input shaft by hand.

So then i went to adjust the intermediate band, all I did was break the adjustment stud loose and back it out not moving the lock nut. After properly setting the intermediate band, 120 inch pounds then back off 1.5 turns. I still had this much gap between the lock nut and the case, so I feel like they probably just ran the thing home with a impact 🤦‍♂️



Anyways got it all buttoned up and hopefully that solves my problems and I can actually enjoy this thing 🤞




Guess I'm gonna try to stab it back in today.

 

Larry, the problem using a normal big cap HEI is there is not a lot of room at the front of Ford motors to adjust timing unless it is dropped in just right and even then may not be able to adjust right.

The MSD RTR I think would be a few $$$ but should come with advance kit to dial in the timing.
If it is like my MSD race unit the springs are up top where the Ford dist. are down inside and you got to pull the dist. and then pull it apart to make changes.

I think the newer motors that use the big cap dont have vacuum advance as a computer dose the adjusting.

John being it is not a race motor turning high RPM you can get away with a small cap like you are running.
Do you have the old points dist.? If so and the shaft dose not have any play in it maybe drop that in for now.
See if you have issues, then that would point to the carb.
Now I would replace the points with a Pertronix kit and not look back.

Good luck on the transmission
Dave ----

 

John
I forgot I have been home since Tues noon sick and the only time I was not home Saturday was a quick run to the dump with the trash.
I was there a little longer than normal because the guys there wanted a better look at the truck being it was slow.
Dave ----