vh2q

84 Wagoneer V6 2.8L California Emissions

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Was running fine, tach was overreading and jumpy when very cold, but no other problems. Well the check engine light has been on for 10 years and nobody seems to be able to fix that. They told me it's the engine block temp sensor (according to the code) and we have replaced that twice. Now that sender is nla. But I ignored it as it runs fine. Drove it 3000 miles from OR to TX pulling trialer no problem.

Recently, had a no spark event en route to DFW. Filled up with gas, vehicle would not start. Left vehicle with shop1 and hitchhiked the rest of the way to the airport. When I got back shop1 told me they had a hard time getting it fixed, burned several coils (?) or maybe ignitions, so they got rid of the factory internal ignition module, wired up an external ignition control (a silver box they said came from a Ford, it has no identification on it but 7 wires coming from it), replaced the ignition coil, distributor cap and the rotor. It worked for about 300 miles then no spark again. Had it towed to another shop close to home. Shop2 replaced ignition coil and ran a ground wire direct from coil mount to batt negative. It ran for about 25 miles then no spark. Well actually there was weak spark, orange at the coil, nothing at the plug. Had it towed back to Shop2. Shop2 wanted to install some fancy distributor from Summit Racing for $500. I said no thanks, at least not until we find out what the problem is. They said they don't have the time or diagnostic eqpt to fix it, told me to "take it somewhere else" without offer of refund for their 1/2 *** work.

So now I am attempting to figure it out myself as it's 20 miles to town from here. Put in a new ignition coil (made in China), has 4 male pins, same thing weak (orange) spark at coil, nothing at plug. Tested ignition voltage supply at coil yellow wire, getting 10.5V stationary or cranking. That seems low but I think my voltmeter reads a little low as the battery tests only 11.3V and it's a brand new battery. Still I wonder whether the ignition switch has a poor contact (it's ancient). Tested coil ground (brown) through distributor, have good ground. Tested new coil, got 1.2 ohms primary, 7500 secondary. That seems low so I took coil (made in China) back. Auto parts store says Cal emissions car has a specific coil so I have one of those on order, AC Delco.

Meanwhile started to unravel what Shop1 did and it boggles my mind.

1. There is no hookup to the computer. Just the bare female connector. There are supposed to be 4 wires from distributor to computer harness.

2. There are now only two control wires plus a ground coming from the distributor, and the white plastic clip that holds those wires as they exit the distributor is broken into pieces. Can't get the part (marked 16 PED), have been to three parts stores. I think it's just a clip but still.

3. The ignition box (silver) has a bunch of wires coming from it. There is a white wire and a red wire. Shop 1 spliced both of those together as they exit the ignition module and hooked them up to one of the coil wires (pink wire). According to my research, the white wire is supposed to be hooked up to the starter solenoid. The red wire to coil + which I presume is the pink wire.

4. Tested pickup coil resistance and it's about 800 ohms. No idea whether that's good or bad but hey, I am getting a spark albeit a weak one so it seems the trigger is triggering.

My tach has been acting up for some time. I disconnected the green (tach) wire at the coil thinking maybe that was interfering with coil function but still getting weak spark.

Even if I get it fixed ie strong spark, I am wondering why the coils are burning up? Maybe shop 1 and shop 2 missed the part about California?

So now what to do? I am tempted to put this all back to stock. But perhaps there is just a simple thing I am missing. I am suspicious about point 3 above ie the red and white wire spliced together. Would that screw up the spark? The white wire is supposed to be a voltage supply while cranking and a dead wire otherwise. I think. The way he has it wired, it's sending the coil + signal
(the red wire voltage) back to the ignition module via the white wire. How does that make any sense?

Any help would be appreciated.

vh2q

Here are a couple of photos of the external ignition installed by shop1, and yes that is their idea of wiring (well they wrapped the white connectors in tape).

vh2q

OK so it turns out this is a Wells F102 ignition. This was used on some V8 and I4 Jeeps but not on the V6 2.8

Pin out spec (from Wells attached) says

white ... start
red ... ignition

Genius at shop1 has them spliced together and going to ignition coil pink (+)!!! this terminal has no voltage when the ignition is on and the ignition coil is disconnected. the yellow wire from harness to coil is the ignition positive. i don't think there is any starter wire on this vehicle. The coil pink wire is supposed to come from the distributor but not sure what component in the distributor, probably the ignition module but that has been removed.

green ... ignition coil neg (that's what he did)
black ... distrib ground (that's what he did)
purple ... pickup coil negative (yes but not sure if he got them the right way round)
orange ... pickup coil positive (ditto)

now I am wondering how this car ran at all.

since there is no longer an ignition module in the coil, I am wondering how to proceed. I can hook the red Wells ignition wire to the yellow Jeep coil terminal (ignition +). But then what do I do with the pink wire?

So I thought perhaps pink wire is same as yellow wire (ign pos) when the coil is installed but when I measure the resistance between the pink and yellow terminals on the coil, I get .5 ohm .. there is something between those two pin-outs on the coil ... so in effect Genius is picking up around 9V from the coil and feeding that to the ignition and I am not even sure that is a steady 9V as pink is primary coil positive and that coil is undergoing all sorts of gyrations.

vh2q

I am now starting to think that the large (.040) plug gap required for CA emissions is hard on coils ... anyone agree? Maybe this is why there is a different coil (part no.) for CA cars. And I suspect that the past geniuses overlooked this.

vh2q

OK so got new coil it measured 8500 ohms not 7400 like the prior one. Installed it and got spark to plugs but not great. High hopes but would not start. Checked distributor orientation and wires ... he had the plug wires in the right sequence but one terminal off. Must have compensated by rotating distributor making the spark jump further than it had to. Put wires on right terminals and tried to start. Whoah, the starter was doing weird things. Figured it was firing at the wrong time. Went back to square one. Cyl 1 at TDC compression, reset distributor so rotor is pointing just after lead 1 (between 1 and 2), got all the leads on the right terminals, and lo and behold ... nothing. Dead. Checked spark at plugs ... the spark I thought I had was gone. Nothing, even if I twirled distributor 20 degrees either way. Weak spark (about 1/4" max) at the coil. Tried to hook bat pos directly to coil pos. Same thing, weak spark at coil, nothing at plugs.

Got multimeter out. Measured all the resistances, they were unchanged. But wait, the restistance of coil negative to ground via the electronic ignition module and then via the distributor ground was 22 ohms with ignition off. That seems wrong. Should either be zero or infinite (open or closed "contact"). Get the same result from the plug terminal to batt negative, so it's not the wiring. If there is 22 ohms then the primary coil is not getting much in the way of amperage between firing cycles and thus failing to energize the secondary coil. When I do the test light test on the coil negative, I get strobe while cranking with fairly bright lamp but that's not conclusive.

I tested distributor ground again. Between ignition module plug and batt negative it's about 1 ohm. It's got good ground. So the fault is not in the wiring or the distributor or the engine grounds etc. It's got to be internal to the ignition. When I do the same test with ignition on, I am getting about 4 volts from coil negative to battery negative. In other words my primary coil is only seeing about 7 volts ... that has to be the cause of weak spark.

I think the fault is in the Wells F102 unit. I have called their tech line to see what that resistance should be while powered down.

TimV

Oy vey! That is quite a challenge you have there.

Not much of any help from me except maybe thoroughly checking the ground paths.

There are some people on this forum seemingly well qualified to give good advice. Rest assured that if they can, they will.

Good luck!

vh2q

"Well" it gets worse. I disconnected ignition module leaving only batt to coil pos. Then intermittently shorted coil neg lead direct to ground to simulate action of ignition module. Small spark at coil negative, no spark at secondary coil. New coil secondary is now shorted out showing only 7k ohm resistance to ground from secondary post and no spark at the plugs, very weak spark at the post. It's hot from just the ignition being on, even for a short time. That is the fourth coil that has died in about 400 miles of driving. This last coil did not even get out of the gate. Something in this setup is burning up coils ... of various brands.

Spoke to tech support at Wells. They say the white lead has to go to the starter solenoid regardless. My car has no ballast resistor according to the wiring schematic but regardless, the Wells box needs a separate input during starting vs. running. The way it's wired now both are seeing ignition voltage all the time. Maybe that is what is destroying the coils, but you would think it would hold up for more than about three minutes of intermittent testing. They also say you can't test unit with ohm meter, you have to go to Autozone to have it tested. So that's the next stop ... for a new coil plus the ignition unit test. Looks like best case I will need to get dirty to hook up the Wells ignition white lead to the starter solenoid. Worst case I will need a new ignition. In which case I will just go back to stock, but unfortunately I think that means a new distributor as the leads and plugs for the computer as well as the coil are gone thanks to shop 1.

Bottom line never trust a one armed mechanic.

vh2q

Took Wells ignition to Autozone for test. They say it's bad. So rather than repeat that hack, I am going back to stock. I will need a new distributor because the pigtails were removed by the genius at shop1 and as far as I know, the pigtails (one 4 wire to computer, one three wire to coil and ground) are not available. But the distributor I find for this year/make/model https://www.1aauto.com/Distributor/I...TQw#turntodone
is described as having a 6 pin ignition module; whereas the Cali version of this vehicle apparently requires a 7 pin ignition module (well not apparently, I have one I bought from Autozone and it has 7 pins: 4 pins for the computer, 3 pins for ignition coil and pickup coil?) Any suggestions? Does anyone have a dead distributor and is willing to donate the wiring and the little plastic plug that holds the wiring in place?

vh2q

The saga continues.

Rather than replace the distributor for the sake of a plug and some pigtails, I bought a new F102 ignition module Duralast brand (it was only $30) and a new coil Duralast also and hooked it all up. I was getting spark a the plugs but I would not say it was the greatest spark. It was still a bit orange but at least it was bigger/longer. I made two changes vs shop 1 install: I hooked the white wire to the starter relay per the OEM pinout spec (shop 1 genius just spliced the white wire to the ignition positive so the ignition though the starter was cranking all the time); and I reversed the hookup for the orange and violet (pickup coil) to see if that would make any difference, as there was no way to figure out which pickup coil wire was pos and which was negative now that genius 1 had cut the pigtail/plug off when he hacked my ignition; and previously as reported above I redid the plug wires on the cap so no 1 was on the terminal marked no 1, and had to reset the distributor gear so that when no 1 piston was at the timing mark (12 degree btdc), the rotor was pointing to terminal 1 or a little ahead to allow for advance at higher rpm.

So viola the car started. I set the timing to 12 degrees with a strobe (I had to retard it quite a lot by rotating distributor clockwise) and then shut it down, rotated the motor by hand so cyl 1 was at 12 deg btdc and then took the distributor cap off. I found the (brand new) rotor had a burn mark in the plastic on the leading edge indicating the rotor had to "reach ahead" for the plug terminal (this surprised me as I only ran the motor for a few minutes while I set the timing) and the cap had some smoke marks as well; and the rotor was lagging the cap ie it was lined up quite a bit prior to no 1 terminal, a condition which would be worse at higher rpms as the coil would fire even sooner.

So off came the distributor clamp and I set the rotor one tooth clockwise thinking it would now align better with the cap terminal. Put the cap on and set the distributor so no 1 wire was closest to no 1 cylinder pointing around 1 o clock with noon being the front of the car. Fired it up and using strobe had to rotate cap cw again (retard) to get it on the timing mark. Shut it down, got no 1 back to 12 btdc and took cap off. Lo and behold, rotor was still lagging the cap maybe not quite as much but at idle it should be ahead a bit to allow for advance. In other words, what I did moved everything one notch clockwise but did not really achieve the desired result ie the rotor pointing at the forward edge of the cap terminal so when the spark advanced it would be pointing at the terminal or perhaps at the trailing edge.

So now I am really scratching my head. Three thoughts/questions:

1. Does reversing the pickup coil wires change the timing? (Will switch them back to where Shop1 had them and check timing again).
2. Does a CA emissions car have a specific distributor, rotor or cap? I know it has a specific pickup coil as well as a specific ignition module, but we are not running the OEM internal ignition module here. And I am not sure what pickup coil is in the motor as this motor is a transplant from an 85 Wagoneer, not the original motor. Having said that, it took 40K miles on the new motor for the no spark conditions to manifest; but that could be because Shop1 set the timing wrong.
3. I have seen two schematics for the distributor orientation on this V6 2.8. One has no. 1 terminal pointing at cyl no. 1 ie around 1 o clock; the other has no 1 pointing at 9 o clock with noon being the front of the vehicle. I have been trying to set it up according to the latter as it was closest to the condition it was in post shop1. Which schematic is correct? Or does it not really matter?

So I also think that this misalignment between the cap and the rotor was the cause of my recent rash of coil failures. It created too large a gap (when added to the plug gap which is already large on CA emissions motors 40 thou) for the coil to discharge properly. This suspicion was confirmed by the fact that when I first inspected the cap after recovering the vehicle from shop2, the spark was "hitting" on one extreme of the terminal inside the cap, not in the middle. Unfortunately, after all this work I think I still have the same condition and I fear that my coil will fail again shortly.

PS I was researching the correct timing setting "after the fact" and discovered this vehicle was equipped with "electronic spark timing" at the factory and that the four wire plug at the distributor hooks up to the computer for this function. You are supposed to unhook it to set the timing at idle at 12 degrees at 700 rpm. The distributor has no vacuum advance for this reason. Genius1 discarded both the OEM ignition module (internal to the distributor) and the associated 4 wire plug. I am not sure what the F102 box does for advance but my guess is nothing .. it's just an electronic version of the points. So I am only going to get the centrifugal advance and that's it ... insufficient. Back to square one.

vh2q

Well despite the rain I persisted today.

Wells informed me that their F102 has no advance logic. As I suspected it's just an electronic version of points that runs off magnetic coil pulses as opposed to a lobe on the distributor shaft.

Then I did some research and was surprised to see in the workshop manual that the CA version of this car is supposed to have distributor 1103570 which is supposed to have a set of centrifugal weights but no vacuum advance, being an "electronic" distributor .. my distributor has none. Therefore I conclude that Shop1, or rather Bozo1 as I am now realizing, removed the centrifugal advance from the vehicle. Which makes sense because after I picked it up, for the few hundred miles I drove before it died, seemed to have no guts going up hills and seemed to be using a lot of fuel. My wife said she noticed the tailpipe stank.

Then I reinstalled the distributor with no 1 terminal at 9 o clock as this seems to be the more common schematic online, and reset the timing to 12 BTDC. This seemed to be more correct as the pickup coil wires now exit the distributor at the point closest to the coil. Then I checked to see where the rotor was in relation to no 1 plug wire terminal in the cap and it was a tad past it, which is I think correct as when it advances it will align better with the terminal. Then I switched around the two coil pickup leads to the ignition module (IE I put them back to where Bozo1 had them) and the vehicle would hardly start. So I put them back to where I had them and the car started and idled just fine. I observed the advance with my timing light. When I revved the engine a bit, I was surprised to see the spark actually retarded to about 8 degrees btdc.

So not only does this distributor have no vacuum advance, it also has no mechanical advance and since the Wells module is dumb, there is no advance period.

Next step is to rip it all out again and put it all back to stock. Replace distributor, get rid of Wells f102, hook up computer and hope it runs. Going on two weeks now without my faithful Jeep. Thanks to Bozo1 (and Bozo2 who merely replaced the coil knowing that the vehicle was shorting out coils ... never bothering to check the distributor cap, rotor or timing). Lesson 2, never trust a mechanic who is not wearing a shirt.

vh2q

Well I realize I have answered most of my own questions but it now boils down to

1. Should I get a conventional vacuum advance distributor and leave the ignition alone now that it's firing .. some of these Jeep V6 motors had that so the part is available.
or
2. Should I try to return the distributor that's in the car to stock (I have a new ignition module and a pickup coil but I can't buy the "terminal assembly" ie the pigtails, it's NLA so I would need to get that from a junk yard. It looks OK internally, there are a couple of degrees of rotational play on the rotor/shaft, given that this is an electronic advance I feel there should be no play at all but then again a little play is not going to hurt anything I don't think.
or
3. Should I buy a complete correct electronic OEM or OEM clone distributor. There is some confusion as to what the correct part is. The Jeep Manual says 1103521 for a California V6 2.8 1984; the GM/Mopar master catalog gives 1103519 and 1103570 for 84 CA version. In any case I am not even sure this motor is still CA spec, as I mentioned I swapped out the motor with an 85 some years ago. Looking at the carb, I see two computer harness hookups to the carb indicating CA, plus the distributor has no mech or vacuum advance, plus the emissions doors are present on the aircleaner, so perhaps the mechanic transplanted the old carb, aircleaner and distributor, I can't really recall.

4. As a completely separate matter, I see a sensor of some sort at the back of the rh cylinder head (ie nearest to cyl 5) with two pins and nothing hooked up to it. What is that? The anti-knock sensor? If so where does that plug in? There is a superfluous two prong plug on the inner fender but if that's it, there is an "extension cord" missing.

5. And as another separate matter, what do I do about the non-functioning "Evap Vacuum Motor" ... when I suck on it, it leaks, so I am guessing the door does not even open. These are listed as NLA. Is there some workaround? Or a part that can be adapted to work? GM/Borg Warner part looks similar but will need some McGivering.

POSTSCRIPT

I returned the vehicle to stock, using a Cardone distributor 1103570 (which is the same no. stamped on the unit I pulled ... this Cardone is a nice piece of machinery with brass cap terminals and brass rotor tip, approx $100 which seems like an awfully cheap part but then again I am used to Ferrari part prices (add a zero), with the correct ignition module in place (7 pin) and the pickup coil as well. With cyl 1 at 12 before TDC I installed the distributor with the rotor at about 10 o' clock and set the cap with no 1 terminal at 9 o'clock per the manual and that's pretty much where it ended up when I set the timing with the computer (4 wire plug) not hooked up, in contrast to the prior situation where the distributor needed to be retarded quite a bit to get to 12 deg and that always threw off the alignment of the rotor vs the cap; I think the cap on the Cardone distributor was a little different than Bozo1's cap, which always seemed to have the rotor in the wrong position after the timing was set. Would not surprise me in the least if Bozo1 got the wrong part. I then hooked up computer to check that I am getting advance and that seemed to be working as there was substantial advance when I gave it some throttle, but no easy way to check whether I am getting the correct advance. I then test drove vehicle and it runs and accelerates smoothly. Only problem the vehicle would not idle at all once it was off choke, it would die in full gallop if I lifted off the gas. I set idle (needed quite a lot of adjust which surprised me so perhaps there is something else going on ... before the dead coil spree started on two occasions the motor died while I was making a turn with no throttle ... hmmm). Or perhaps bozo1 adjusted the throttle after he boogered my distributor ... he may have set the advance on some middling number like 16 and that will give a fast idle. so he backed off the idle stop; or perhaps there is something going on with the carburetor now (please no I have had enough).

Bottom line, I undid everything Bozo1 did except the $900 charge on my credit card for boogering up my ignition and doing a half-assed a/c resuscitation, which lasted less time than his ignition job .. that's another story. I managed to get $90 back based on Bozo2's bill, but I paid Bozo2 with a check and I can't get that back. I spent a bunch of money at Autozone (two coils, a wells 102, and a distributor) and I learned a lot about electronic distributors and electronic ignition that I did not know. Up til now, points were the limit of my knowledge.

I also found online the evap vacuum motor I needed ... or at least it appears to be the same part, it is a mopar part for the Ford Ranger of similar vintage. I searched for a week under Jeep, online as well as at the local parts stores and found only NLA. It has not arrived yet so in the meantime I have wired the evap door half open and plugged the hose (and perhaps that is causing the idle problem as the vacuum inside the aircleaner at idle is going to be minimal now so the computer is not applying any vacuum advance). We will see if that improves when the part shows up.

So I guess I solved most all of my problems without any input from this community, other than a single post of moral support which I appreciated. Hopefully some other poor Jeep person will find my journey educational. Or at least entertaining.

If anyone lives in Central TX and wants to know who Bozo1 and Bozo2 are, message me. If you live elsewhere, I guess it's academic.

vh2q

I am happy to report that the Jeep is more zippy than ever, heck I can accelerate going up hills, and wife says the foul smell is gone .. only thing I was not able to fix was the "idle kick" solenoid. It does not work and the part is NLA. So my idle is set correctly for "in gear" mode, and it jumps up when you put it in park. For a short while there it was not idling so I needed to turn the idle screw in; but then it recovered and I put the screw back where it was. Perhaps something blocked the idle jet temporarily. Or it's some intermittent thing. Time will tell.

The evap vacuum motor works but the hose hooks up 180 degrees from the prior position, you just have to allow for that with a longer hose. Also the "hook" underneath is not the same but you can fix that with pliers.

Bugout4x4

It's hard to understand why there was not more participation with this problem you had here, except that it may have been one of those "you have to be there" kind of problems you were having. It is good to see you stayed after it until you got it all mostly cured.

TimV

Well, had to read that all 3 times but.... thinking that was quite the learning experience. Thanks for taking the time to write this all up!

Bugout4x4

Yes, it is great he took the time to share... Someone else might run into this someday...