Good afternoon, I am new to the forum and am looking for suggestions as I am at my wits end. I hope this is the right place to post this issue.

I have a 1996 F53 motorhome with a 460 that quit on me running down the freeway coming back from a camping trip.I had been left stranded a month or so before this current issue and the problem was ignition related. I determined that the PIP in the distributor was bad but I also changed out the ICM and coil.
So the ignition system is all new with the black ICM, new distributor and coil. I get good spark at the Distributor and at the plugs. Plugs are new also. I drove it for about 90 miles around town to regain trust and then took her out to the beach for the weekend 2 weeks ago.On the way back she died and left me stranded on the side of the freeway. Here is what happened:

Symptoms when it failed: Seemed to struggle on a slight incline at about 65 mph, gave it more gas and it stumbled. Dropped her out of overdrive and same sort of stumbling. Then she died, saw the tach go to zero and I put her in neutral to roll off the freeway
After 3 hours of fun waiting for the tow truck, back at home in the driveway. I have researched all kinds of possible causes on this and other sites. With this latest issue, I determined that I was not getting any injector triggering. I found that the Throttle Position Sensor was bad and replaced.I have checked my fuel pump and I believe that it is good. Get about 32 psi when I turn the key on. I replaced with a new Motorcraft turbocore in tank pump last year.However, I can’t get it to start. I have a strong spark at the plug and my injectors are firing but I can not get it to fire. It wont fire on starting fluid at all. No pops or anything. Almost like the timing is off all of a sudden.I bought the Innova OBD I scanner and there are no codes. I don’t know if the fact that the tester connects and runs through the KOEO test it means the ECM is good?Anyway, I wanted to give as much info as possible so you smart folks out there may be able to point me to other things that I may be missing. Don’t want to keep throwing money at it….Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

 

I started over today and I don't understand why the engine will not at least pop or try to start with ether. I seem to have a good spark. Any thoughts?

 

All right, figured it out today. The new distributor gear drive pin sheared. The small pin that goes diagonally through the gear and the main shaft and keeps the gear in place had broken. Therefore, the rotor only turned when it wanted to. That is why I had a spark but only randomly. Glad that that's all it was. New distributor and she is running strong again. Hope this helps someone in the future...
Good luck out there...

 

Glad we could help.....

Welcome to FTE. I hope you can get more, some, any(?) responses in the future.

 

Hopefully, you checked the gear on the cam, to ensure it wasn't messed up, or you will be back into this again. Have to ask yourself, what caused the shear pin to shear, on a new distributor? On some Ford engines, Ford requires you install a brass gear on the distributor.

I won't go into how I know this right now, but will most likely be posting later about a long sad story that is still in progress.......

 

High Desert Rat - thank you for the post response. The distributor that I removed had a steel gear as did the one that I put in. When I inspected the gear and sheared pin, I did not see any visual indication of why it may have failed. The gear appeared to be in good shape as did the gear on the cam. I probably ran the new distributor for about 200 miles before the failure. The distributor shaft turned very freely in the assembly so I am at a loss as to why it may have broken the pin. When I was spinning the rotor after I realized the pin had probably sheared while still installed in the engine, the oil pump felt fine. I did not notice anthing out of the ordinary. I sure hope that it was just a manufacturing defect and not something else with the engine that would cause this failure. Do you have any suggestions on other things that I should check? I sure don't want to be stranded again. Appreciate the help. Thank you

 

I was a Ford tech back in the 80's and 90's and saw this a lot during snow bird season. The 460 and the 300 were famous for doing it back then and I wouldn't worry too much about it, what they used for the original roll pins was a weak almost coke can like metal. We use to put in a more robust roll pin and let em go down the road with never a problem. maybe just a faulty new distributor or if it was rebuilt they didn't change the pin. Get the right size pin and throw in the toolbox if you are still worried about it.