[Shotimes] Unstable Sable

[George Fourchy]

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 19:09:17 -0600, Kevin & Cheryl Airth wrote:

>Have they changed the TFI (Thick Film Integrated) module on the distributor?

I agree.  My TBird Turbo was trouble free for its entire life of 200K miles, except
for the instance at 125K where it lost its TFI module.  I always thought that meant
'Thin Film Ignition' module, but your definition has as much chance of being right
as mine does.

Anyway, it quit cold one day, on the way to the auto-shop class at a high school
that I was a teaching assistant at, and so we went down to a parts store and got
another one.  The school had a tester that definitely confirmed the module was
bad.....that was nice to know.  It ran fine for a few days, then quit again.  My
local dealer (one I trusted) said that when the TFI module dies, it often takes the
Hall Effect sensor with it.  This device is in the distributor, and takes the place
of points.  (You all remember points, right?)  I took it to the dealer, since the
distributor on the 2.3L 4 cyl engine is rather hard to get to on a turbo car.  One
day later, it was fixed, and never gave me any trouble again.

Those TFI modules were the subject of a recall for '80s and '90s Fords....that event
is probably over by now.

George