Engine died when driving and won't start - Coil melted

[mibars]

Hi,
My 350 TBI burb has just stalled wile driving, upon first couple of tries to restart it appeared like it was trying to start firing couple of cylinders, now I have zero ignition.
TBI is splaying fuel, double checked it's not fuel by pouring a bit of gas right into throttle body, no ignition. No fuses are blown, I can hear fuel pump.

EDIT: Just tested the coil, it reads "open" between terminals which should have close to zero resitance. Once removed it looks like it has melted!

Do you think this is a root cause, or maybe a side effect of some other failure?

 

[Snoots]

Coils do occasionally die. I had one go terminals up 2 months ago. Coil just died. No rhyme or reason. Yours likely shorted internally which caused the heat to melt it just before it opened up.
IIWY, I'd get a new GM Delco coil from Amazon and call it a day.

 

[Ricko1966]

Running cheap modules burns coils up premature. GM modules and Napa TP45 modules vary dwell at different engine speed to keep from over saturating the coil.

 

[mibars]

New coil of unknown brand is on the way. Dedicated to 'old forklifts', apparently some used GM motors

This makes me wonder what are the common items that may die and disable the car on those TBI engines? I guess ignition module may be one of such items. I'd like to have some common spare parts with me just in case

 

[SquareRoot]

MSD makes quality products. Far better than GM or Napa in my experience. Seems they are both mostly Chineseium now. I really like their high vibration versions that are epoxy filled. Just my ,02.

 

[Ricko1966]

New coil of unknown brand is on the way. Dedicated to 'old forklifts', apparently some used GM motors

This makes me wonder what are the common items that may die and disable the car on those TBI engines? I guess ignition module may be one of such items. I'd like to have some common spare parts with me just in case

Things that will leave you stranded. Parts of unknown brand.

 

[mibars]

Things that will leave you stranded. Parts of unknown brand.

I agree, but that's what they had locally in Poland. Without it I can't even park my Burb back into garage to work on it, got it towed home, but no way to push it uphill to the garage.. BTW a sight of a VW Passat towing a Suburban through the forest must have been an interesting sight for passerby's

I'd like to have a set of critical components with me, "just in case", so I'd probably buy a decent coil and ignition module for any roadside repair that may be needed.
I'm also looking for any potential items that may fail and strand me, so I'm looking for ideas from more experienced square body owners

 

[Ricko1966]

I agree, but that's what they had locally in Poland. Without it I can't even park my Burb back into garage to work on it, got it towed home, but no way to push it uphill to the garage.. BTW a sight of a VW Passat towing a Suburban through the forest must have been an interesting sight for passerby's

I'd like to have a set of critical components with me, "just in case", so I'd probably buy a decent coil and ignition module for any roadside repair that may be needed.
I'm also looking for any potential items that may fail and strand me, so I'm looking for ideas from more experienced square body owners

Ohhh! Got ya. Yea if parts availability is a problem you gotta do what you gotta do. Get a Napa or GM ignition module and a GM ,MSD coil. When replacing parts,think,GM had to warranty these cars,how long did the original parts last, GM wasn't worried about price points,magazine write ups or record parts sales volume. They were worried about not having GM cars broke down,giving GM a bad name and killing new car sales.

 

[mibars]

Coil replaced, still no start... Coil tested 12 kOhm on secondary, bit higher than 8.1 kOhm on the onethat I took out and close to 1 ohm on primary. I don't have a comparison of primary coil as this is what's blown in my old one.

Injectors are spraying, I can smell gas. I put a spark plug into coil output, grounded it and no spark.
Tach terminal (white) with the key on is showing less than 4 volts. I guess the issue would be the ignition module in the distributor...

Are ignition modules the same between 4.3 V6 TBI and 5.7 TBI? That's what I can get locally.

 

[Radiohead]

The distributor is turning when you crank, no?

 

[mibars]

The distributor is turning when you crank, no?

Yes, it does.

12.1 V on pink wire with coil disconnected (power to the coil good, although no load)
The moment I plug it back to the coil some stuff clicks, I believe injectors fire once, but no spark on a spark plug connected directly to the coil output wire (laying on mainfolf for grounding)

Took the module out, no visible signs of failure except of a bit of corrosion on PN pins.

After a quick study if I have a power to the coil (feed to coil OK), less than 4V on tach wire (should be above 10), injectors do fire when cranking (signal from pickup coil is registered and sent to ECM), coil has correct resistances (no open or short) then it points out to the ignition module that is malfunctioning. Am I right?

 

[Ricko1966]

Coil replaced, still no start... Coil tested 12 kOhm on secondary, bit higher than 8.1 kOhm on the onethat I took out and close to 1 ohm on primary. I don't have a comparison of primary coil as this is what's blown in my old one.

Injectors are spraying, I can smell gas. I put a spark plug into coil output, grounded it and no spark.
Tach terminal (white) with the key on is showing less than 4 volts. I guess the issue would be the ignition module in the distributor...

Are ignition modules the same between 4.3 V6 TBI and 5.7 TBI? That's what I can get locally.

Look at the 4.3 module and your module,same number of pins and same connectors= same module. In this case, the only variations I'm aware of are all the 5 pin modules are not the same. But the others are

 

[mibars]

I find that there are couple of identical looking modules, same pins, etc. with different part numbers, D1960A (the one that I can buy), D1984A, D1943A. For now I found that the D1984A and D1943A are usually listed as identical and interchangeable, but D1960A seems to be used with V6. I even found some modules that look identical that were used in a 4 bangers in Europe in Opel and Daewoo. I'm not sure if the module would care that there are 8 or 6 or 4 sparks per rotation, but who knows...

 

[Ricko1966]

I find that there are couple of identical looking modules, same pins, etc. with different part numbers, D1960A (the one that I can buy), D1984A, D1943A. For now I found that the D1984A and D1943A are usually listed as identical and interchangeable, but D1960A seems to be used with V6. I even found some modules that look identical that were used in a 4 bangers in Europe in Opel and Daewoo. I'm not sure if the module would care that there are 8 or 6 or 4 sparks per rotation, but who knows...

Well sir I was going from megasquirt memory, in actuality in a stock application the different modules have different characteristics. I'm sure any would work but probably not as well as the original,some pull timing or add timing at different rpms

 

[mibars]

Got lucky and found some private seller selling AC Delco D1943A
If that won't fix the issue I'll keep diagnosing and throwing parts until it does