Hey all,
have got a real prob , i'll start at the start. steam cleaned my engine on 91 eb series one for rwc to get her back on the road. All good until i tried to start her. Would not start checked the pump seemed fine, then checked spark. No spark so pulled out the distributor noticed oily water in the connector for the tfi. Cool dried out the best i could went to put it back in, bumped it against the engine low and behold the distributor sparked. So got my test light out the whole distributor had power through it. Okay so thought it was no good went to the wreckers got another one it has done the same thing, Is this the tfi blowing up and if so why ,and how do i fix this. Any help would be good got me really stumped :conf

You fried your ignition coil!!!! Common problem on e-series after you wash your engine bay because ford stuck them on the block where they suffer from heat, vibrations which cause hairline cracks in the plastic. Water gets in and shorts out the winding====dead coil........

so how does this make the distributor get 12 volts through it

because the coil has a constant 12v being sent to the positive side and is only fired when sent a negative signal from the TFI on the dizzy.

its still a bit strange though as the TFI shouldn't have anything that makes contact with the dizzy itself other than the heat sink and the plugs for the hall effect sensor located in the dizzy, but this might be enough?

the coil output on the TFI is actually controlled by the ECU, so it may be possible for both the coil and ECU to be damaged.

get a known working coil and plug it in on top of the manifold so you can test it easier.

check the plug at the coil. with the ignition on, the positive side will have 12v going through, but the negative side will not have a signal - so earth your test light and check each side of the plug, if it lights up on both sides whilst earthed, this is bad lol.

if you cant get a hold of a coil and still have the dizzy out, you can check the wires at the dizzy end by probing the TFI plug - test them with the coil plugged in, then again with it unplugged.

the wires should be(going by memory, so please correct me if i'm wrong):

PIP: positive signal only active when fired by ECU
SPOUT: positive signal that varies when the distributor spins
start: 12v+ only active when cranking
run: 12v+ active when ignition is on
coil: negative - only active when told to fire by ECU
ign ground: negative



hope that makes sense and helps lol