working on a 94 ford f150 302 motor.
It quit running abruptly the other day.

It has fuel at the rail (I could not test the pressure as I did not have proper adapter for fuel press gauge I have)
but it is building pressure just don't know how much.

The coil reistances were within specs (according to the hayes manual I have (only thing I had available)

all tests pointed to the Ignition module being faulty (it is the external type), which I took off and had tested at autozone (it failed the test)

the test that pointed to the Ign module was to:
probe the neg side of the coil with a test light and crank the engine, the light was supposed to blink with each pulse of the coil, but it just stayed on steady while cranking (the manual now said said that I needed to test the ign module)

Put a new ign module on, and cranked it. it fired a couple of times but never started. (interestingly, the coil still had the "test light does not blink" issue as stated above).

Could it be flooded ( from cranking it before the I replaced the ign module) or maybe the coil is bad as well even though its resistances are within spec.

I took some spark plugs out, in order to clean them up and to allow any extra fuel to exit the cylinders before I try again.....

I need advice on where to go next or at least to tell me if I am going in the right direction

 

Could be getting erratic spark discharges igniting fuel present in the cylinders. If it's truly flooded, you will smell gas. This condition should clear itself up over the course of a couple of hours.

If the coil blinky-light test still isn't right, suggest you've still got an ignition issue.

Not real keen on using AutoZone quality parts on critical components, perhaps they should run their test on their own brand-new part to see if it was bad-out-of-the-box.

Also, it sounds like your set-up is similar to mine. There is also a pickup inside the distributor that can fail. Should be a separate test procedure for it also. It's a bite in the shorts to replace - specifically towards getting the distributor gear off the typically varnished-up shaft without destroying something.

For future note - if you have a flooded condition, hold the accelerator to the floor - 'wide open throttle' - while cranking. This is supposed to kill the injectors.

 

I could smell gas, though not an overwelming smell.

autozone: yeah, but it is an old work truck so that is what was decided.
I considered "bad out of the box", but since it seemed to fire a couple of times, I kinda talked myself out of that...

I did not see a test procedure for a pickup on the distributor, but I will looked again.

thanks for the reply.

 

put plugs back in, put pedal to the floor, after several hits it finally started, but ran for only a couple of minutes then died abruptly.

after that it would not even attempt to start

 

Suggest to continue checking out the ignition system - at least be sure you can eliminate that as a potential problem. Sometimes, when electronics are on the edge - they will work OK when cold, then fail or become intermittent as they warm up.

Could be a fuel issue, but I would think a failure would be a longer death with a little sputtering and the like before finally dieing, the impression I get is it's as if a switch is flipped off when the engine dies???

Does the fuel pump charge the system when you turn the ignition key to ON? Should run for about 2 seconds, then shut off. Does it sound 'normal' when doing so?

Follow the test procedures, and believe in them - if you're not getting the results the procedure call for - figure out why.

 

next day I cranked it, pedal to the floor, it started and stayed started this time (kinda stumbly here and there though).
went ahead and changed the fuel filter (it seemed pretty dirty)
the cap and rotor (made a big difference in starting and idle)
and plugs (no noticale change)

it is going to be driven a while and see what happens, thanks all for the help