Hello. I'll warn ya right now I'm a newbie to the site. I must say its a great place to post your questions, comments, and concerns.

Alright, so lately my dad's truck has been acting kinda funny. 1994, F-150 XLT, with a 302 on 108,000 miles. Basically what it does is it starts up, and runs fine. We can drive anywhere we want to, and the motor acts great. But, shut it off, and start it back up, and it won't wanna run at all, at least not idling.

So my dad thought the timing needed adjusting, so he went out and adjusted it...and that's thrown EVERYTHING off. So I started reading in the Haynes Manual about how to fix the timing, and let me tell you, Hanes missed the mark. I crawled under the truck to find the "small timing mark" in the vibration dampener, that turns out to be a huge mark all the way across the dampener, so I'm good there. But it says there should be a scale telling where top dead center is and all this...and I can't find a scale. All I see is a little metal bracket bolted to the motor that has a big circle at one end, and a point facing the radiator at the other...kinda like this...



And that tells me absolutely nothing. So I'm wondering, was there a scale that used to go on this, and it came off, or is this how you time it? Hopefully someone can explain this to me.

On a side note, I know there's a special proceedure for timing the motor, and the first step is unplugging a little jumper that disconnects the computer so it can't play with the timing while you're adjusting it. On my 1987 Ford Ranger, it was easy to find, but I can't find it on this thing. Where is it?

So, for everyone who reads this and responds, thank you for your time, and have a great day!

Matt

 

start the truck and let it get to operating temperature, shut the engine back off,loosen the hold down bolt on the distributor, the jumper you are talking about should be in the wiring harness coming out of the distibutor, unplug the jumper, the metal pointer on the block should have numbers on it if you don't see any try cleaning it off may have grease covering the numbers. mark the pointer with chalk or white paint, if i'm not mistaken shold be 10 degrees btdc. then mark the harmonic balencer with chalk or paint also. once every thing is marked restart the engine, using timing light check and make sure timing is correct, if not move the distributor back and forth until timing marks line up. once your timing marks are lined up, shut your engine off and tighten the distributor hold down bolt back up, restart engine recheck timing to make sure the distributor didn't move, if every things good, unhook timing light reconnect jumper. the jumper you are talking about is called the spout connector ---- [ spark output ]. once every thing is back together then take the truck for a ride to see if it made a difference or not. hope this helps.

 

TFI modules have a history of acting funny. They can run fine one minute then not at all. Not sure if that applies to yours.

 

Well, I'll tellya. I went out this morning and got the trouble light and looked that metal bracket over, top, and bottom, and everywhere else. There's no grease or grime on it, and there's nothing at all in regards to timing, or anything else for that matter. I also looked around for that spout connector (I knew that was the name for it the other night, but I had a brain fart!) and I can't find it either. But Dad said he went out and monkey'd with it this morning and he claims to have it set where he wants it so I'm not even going to mess with it anymore.

Thanks for your time though. I do appreciate it.

 

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me about TFI modules. All I know is the truck didn't USED to do it. One of my friends has an older Crown Vic with the 5.0L, setup the same way Dad's is, and it does it too. I have a 2.9L with TFI, and it just lopes when I start it up. So I guess its not a perfect system huh? Thanks for your time .

 

Not trying to be a smartazz, but when you have a tech question, you'll probably get better replies at the mustang sites.

The spout connector on a 94 w/ a 302 is on/at or near the driverside firewall. It's a little gray plug going into a 2 wire connector.

Good luck.

 

Welp, I'll tellya, I got what I wanted to hear out of it. By what you say, what I unplugged was indeed the spout connector. Which is good. Anyways, dad got the truck timed the way he wants it, and I drove it and I can't hear anything rattle, so I'm not gonna mess with it anymore. Thanks.

Matt