82 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series Won't Run

[Mob_Sled_Special]

Howdy guys. I bought my grandmothers 1982 Lincoln of her with 103k on it i thought it was a deal. I bought the car and pulled it out of the garage. It ran fine when it was parked years ago. But as anyone who was messed with old ford you should replace all the ignition stuff you can. I pit new plugs and wires and a new ignition box on. The box bolts to the plastic fender which i find odd always thought you had to ground them. Anyways the car has spark and it has fuel. I checked the spark from the coil to the dizzy and from the dizzy to the plugs. I also watched as the tbi system squirts fuel. But to just see how it was going i cranked it and it didn't spin fast (fast as in no compression) i unplugged the tb and had my buddy crank it with his foot on thru accelerator. I gave it a shot of quality ether. To pure surprise nothing. The car can't be put of time as it was drove in the garage and shut off and never messed with. After a few shots of ether we get it to pop once but it was like a slight back fire. Anyone have any idea why its doing this. I plan on tomorrow taking the belt off and seeing of thru accessories are causing a drag not allowing the engine to spin fast enough. Hope someone cab help cause those eec3 tbi system sucks balls

[miamibob]

Is there old gas in the tank? If you don't find other issues I would consider flushing out the gas tank, change the fuel filter/s and run it with new gas and perhaps some Chevron Tech in the tank.

[Mob_Sled_Special]

There's new gas in the tank but it won't fire and run AT ALL did the ol dangerous poor some gas down the throttle get nothing. No hit on ether or the tbi spraying. There's no nothing. Which is odd cause with fuel air and spark it should go

[gadget73]

Did you get the right distributor cap and rotor? The 82 is an EEC3 system, which most likely uses a really wonky looking cap and rotor. If the replacement is not the same type as the original, it won't run. The ignition modules don't go bad that often, so it might be worth plugging the original back in to make sure the replacement is the proper kind. I'd probably also pull and clean the connection for the crankshaft trigger.

[Mob_Sled_Special]

The cap and rotor is that dual contact one and its the one that was on it i didn't change it. And there is a crank trigger that explains there be no internals in the distributor and i never knew there was one so i will definitely look into that thanks. Still odd for it to get fire if the crank trigger would be dirty or messed up

[jaywish]

Did you remove the distributor at any time?

[gadget73]

I've seen these not start with the wrong balancer. It fires at the wrong time. Wouldn't apply if you haven't changed the balancer obviously but it might be worth a look to see if the ring came off or something. Crank trigger is down on the passenger side, in basically the usual location. I think the connector is right near the front corner of the intake manifold, or maybe beside the AC compressor. These do have the crappy timing chain, so it might be possible that it skipped, but you'd probably hear it cranking oddly. Might be worth a compression test to confirm things are normal though. How far will the spark jump from a screwdriver stuck in the end of the plug wire to ground? If its not a solid 1/2", the coil could be too weak to light off the fuel/air mix properly. I think these also have a resistance wire in the ignition system somewhere, so you'll want to make sure the coil is getting enough voltage. I think normal is 6-9v with the key on, and a full 12v when cranking. If the wire is off the I terminal of the starter relay, the resistor wire doesn't get bypassed and it might not have enough oomph to fire.