No re-start when hot.

I had the same problem. In my case it was the starter or the solenoid to be more precise. I bought a new starter. Problem solved!
 
very good point, weak starter/solenoid could be drawing a ton more amps when in "near failure" mode and thus make the car hard to fire, not enough voltage left for the ECU, reminds me I have to do something about my starter (again) I had it professionally rebuilt a year or so ago but it just isn't right. Gear reduction starter time perhaps.
 
Thanks, Tony, I'll see what happens running a wire directly from the battery. I already have a second ground strap at the top of the motor and when I pulled the motor to re-install the motor, the main ground strap was freshly torqued down.

As far as the starter being an issue, it wouldn't take into account that the problem only happens after the engine reaches full heat, around 180 degrees. I can start it up as often as I like as the engine is warming up and never have an issue with it cranking at any temp. I appreciate any suggestions though that get me thinking about different solutions.

All I really do know is that it's getting a bit old trying to figure this out. Sigh.
 
And the Answer Is.....

It's been a while since I've been able to do any work on the X, or been motivated to, but I need to get it ready to sell, so I got back to it today. The battery has been chronic in not holding a charge, so I gave in and went and bought a new battery today. I put it in, started it up, let it get hot and.....

IT STARTED RIGHT BACK UP!!! :headbang:

It looks like the problem may well be solved. If the battery got bad to a point it couldn't provided the voltage needed, then that would explain why the problem started occurring when it never had before.

Now to bleed the clutch master cylinder, which somehow now just goes to the floor. It's always something. :drink:
 
Glad you found the problem. Know the feeling. Mine ending up being ballast resistor related. BTW thanks again for rebuilding my ICM.
Folks if he still has any ICM's you should snap them up!! Great job and great deal.
 
Carefull

I had the same problems the last months. I also bought a new battery and thought i cured the problem. But next day with a longer drive the problem was back again. Luckely i managed to solve my problem. This is what happened.

A few month ago i bought a new coil, the red one from bosch. Also a new distributor and capicitor. After putting the stuff in place everything was okay. But slowly the problem arose and got worse. I checked fuel, bought new fuel pump, new battery. Checked ground. Nothing helped. One day i noticed the coil was hot, very hot and the engine did not start. I cooled the coil with a wet towel and the engine fired up again. After that i checked the wiring around the coil and noticed that i had the capacitor on the wrong pin. So i exchanged my new coil back to the original one and had more or less solved the problem. I also checked the distributor to find out that the inner contact was complete burned away. Probley due to the wrong capacitor connection. I was able to transfer the contact from an old distributor. All my problems were solved. It starts immidiately and runs great. Last thing i did to have it run even better was to clean the grounds on the engine near the transmission. I was amazed by the difference that made.

Hope you solved your problem with a new battery, but otherwise follow my path to a possible solution.
 
Thanks, Felipe. I can rebuild them anytime they're needed as long as I have cores. I've got one in stock now that can go out the next day. I'll bump the ad on FS&W.

I may have spoken a bit prematurely, as I did have two hard restarts yesterday, but it did start. I'm definitely going to look into Mxgrds suggestions to see if it improves. Other than the restarts though, the engine is running better than it ever has before.
 
Forgot to tell. After a cold start, the car ran fine. But after 25-30 minutes it started to holding in at acceleration and occassionally stopped at turn lights. These are the worsed places for a car not starting.
 
Little Lady has had the hot restart issue as well, 80 FI, I replaced the coil and it didn't help. It cranks a bit slow the first few times over when hot but then speeds up to normal cranking speed but still wouldn't start so I need to address the slow cranking. My fix was to go with what Ford did years ago and that is to give the coil 12 volts just when you're cranking so you have a hotter spark when you have the starter load pulling the battery voltage down. I already had a relay on the start circuit so I just added a relay to put the +12 on the coil and triggered it with the start signal that used to go to the starter solenoid but now goes to the relay that triggers the starter solenoid. It still cranks slow the first couple times over but fires off immediately when it spins up to normal speed. It also starts quicker when cold now as well.

I figure this is just a band aid on the overall problem that I need to work on but it buys time and doesn't really hurt anything. Might help out some of you with this problem.
 
Much to my dismay, the problem is still as bad as ever. I replaced the coil with a brand new Bosch, no change. After heating up, I checked at the coil and at the distributor, but no spark. All of the voltages are what they should be. I also swapped out the ICM after it was hot, but no change. The coil voltage at the the positive terminal is 8 to 9 volts hot or cold.

So it gets down to this: it runs perfectly fine when hot until the ignition is shut off, then when it's shut off, there's no spark until it cools down. Could it be the distributor pick-up coil? Ignition switch?
 
hot start probs

first check the starter. is it loose?? are the connections tight??
had that problem in a 68 GTO. that turned out to be heat sink from the engine to starter. cold prrrr.... hot, lowly growl. hope this might send you in the correct direction.
mikemo
 
cranks just fine, just no spark from the brand new coil when hot. As it cools, suddenly there's spark. And the coil doesn't even feel warm.
 
Hmm maybe try a jumper wire (from the battery right to the coil) (if it then starts fine your problem is somewhere between the coil/batter) if no change the problem is after the coil.

I know it doe not tell you what part.. but at least cut's the list in 1/2.
 
You said you swapped the ICM and it still had no spark?

and if you swap the coil as well there still is no spark?

What is it that is left to cool down and start working again?

Given there is 8 - 9 volts to the coil at all times it may behoove you to check to see that there is voltage to the ICM at all times and if so, then I can only think of ONE electronic/electrical component left... the coils or other parts in the Dizzy. Go here:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/12159/message/1145159208

Not likely... but you did say ICM so there are no points or condensers oir anything else... Hope this helps. Sorry for all the trouble.
 
My money is on the distributor pick-up coil

as suggested by TonyK. A cheap roll of the dice to solve a big problem.
 
What did I miss Larry? I can't find where TK commented...

on this subject.

I came too the p/u coil (although I couldn't remember the name... ) as a LAST resort. Did TK come up with this earlier?

Outside of something really strange outside these components, I can't seem to think of anything else that would prevent spark from being triggered.
 
I checked the pickup coil cold and it was within specs - 1081 ohms with an 890-1285 range, according to an old post by lezesig. Then, true to my luck, I broke the distributor cap when I went to clip it back on, so couldn't test it hot. Then if that wasn't enough, I pulled the distributor to remove the pickup coil and found that the flying trigger portion seems to be frozen to the shaft. Found a couple tutorials (yes, I removed the screw on the end of the shaft), but I'm afraid I'm going to damage the whole distributor if I use too much more force.
 
I guess it was a parallel thread but,

yes, Tony K mentioned off-handedly that he had the solved the problem and it was the pick-up coil. They almost always check out in terms of resistance. But the question is, does the resistance go up maybe when everything is soaking at 240F or above? Worth a change just to see.
 
A couple days ago I had actually let the engine heat up with a bag of ice on top of the distributor, but no difference. However, there's a pretty large air insulated gap between the cap and the pickup coil, so not sure if it did any good. I gave up on my efforts to destroy my distributor last night and mikemo90 is coming through for me with another one.

To address another earlier suggestion, I also have tried running a heavy gauge wire directly from the battery to the coil positive terminal. There is also power to the ICM whether hot or cold.

Truly, if it's not the pickup coil, I don't know what's left.
 
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