Dead on side of the road ! ! ! Help !

Troubles in these can be just about anything

Power to the system from the car section of the harness, IE "ignition voltage"

Problems at the various connectors, ALL of them

Problems with the Distributor pickup

Bad or UNgrounded ECU

Bad coil

Bad tach

"General" wiring problems, IE bad splices, wires shorting, whatever

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Some stuff

1.....Put a clip lead on the coil + wire to the battery stud on the start relay. Don't leave this on any longer than necessary to test. Crank the engine, see if you have spark. Test for spark by using a GROUNDED probe (screwdriver or 12V test lamp) right at the coil tower.

2.....Turn key to "run" wired up "normal." Measure coil + should be anywhere from 5--9V

3.....Measure coil -- should be low, perhaps 1.5V or less.

4.....Unhook the distributor connector. Repeatedly touch the bare terminal of the harness connector to ground. Each time you do so, it should make one spark

5....Remove dist. cap, inspect interior of cap and rotor for carbon, moisture, dirt, damage.

Inspect reluctor and pickkup for debri, rust, damage. Get a .008" (inches) BRASS feeler gauge (O'Reallys used to) and check the reluctor gap. "Feel" the shaft for wobble and bushing play

Hook your multimeter to the distributor connector, set on low AC volts. That's AC volts. Crank the engine. It should produce about 1V AC

6....Try another coil? Pretty much a shot in the dark. Remove any unecessary wiring from coil, including tach and radio supression cap

7...These are not necessarily in order. Make ABSOLUTELY certain the ECU is grounded. Scrape paint of the back of the flange, and around the bolt holes. Use star washers

8....I said this before.......Wiggle and work all connectors, ESPECIALLY the distributor.