I would second that. Ford uses heat sink compund, which is a thick white grease. Aftermarket modules comes with silicone grease, which is better than nothing, but barely.
The only time I found heat sink compound on the aftermarket was at NAPA. The counter guy had to scratch his head for a minute and do some scrounging to find it. It came in a little foil pack, just enough to do one module.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Ford moved the TFI module over to the fender on later models.

 

Well I am not sure of the type of grease but it is white and came in a little clear packet.
It was a very busy weekend so the truck didn't get worked on any more.

 

The grease you guys are refering to is known as heat sink compound...I'm into the PC world and it is used to transfer heat from your CPU to your heatsink. Radio Shack sells heatsink compound, it is a white compound that is thick and hard to get off of your hands..almost like antisieze.

 

if I were doing somthing like that, even tho it's a little more expensive, I'd use proper CPU thermal transfer compound (Arctic Silver 3)

 

Hey, quentrm250, is it fixed?

 

I buy big tubes of heat sink compound at a local electronics store cheaper than the little tubes at Radio Shack. It is much better than the silicone that comes with the modules. It's primary purpose is to force out air bubbles between the mating surfaces, thus providing a better connection and heat transfer. I've seen ignition modules break down when hot and found them to have little or no compound under them. Use a liberal amount on them and problem solved. I also had posted earlier about the condensor. It's not just for radio noise suppression. It's a capacitor and it 'absorbs' the voltage spike when the coil discharges. On a points ignition running without one will cause misfires and burn up a set of points in no time, because when the field in the coil collapses, providing a spark to the coil wire, the same thing happens on the primary side of the coil, only on a smaller scale. This spike is a much higher voltage than the 12-14 volts that the circuit operates on, and can take out the module quickly. Condensors rarely go bad, but when they do, they almost always take something with them. A new one is always cheap insurance.

 

Well I must have done something right. The truck has made it over 2 weeks now and is STILL RUNNING!


Here is the run down:

Condensor was replaced.
Grounded actual distributor to the firewall and intake to the firewall. Factory ground wire was removed and cleaned and put back on.
Module was replaced.
All plug wires and coil wire checked good.
Alternator output was checked and was within range with a top of voltage output of 14.1 (while running of course).
Checked ALL wiring on motor for bare spots/shorts.

I think that's about it. Wild guess is that the condensor was bad. But who knows.