RE: strange electrical problem, revisited

[Dave Lawson <dlawson@ball.com>]

I am not familiar with the electrical system on the early coupes, but I had 
a similar type of problem on/off over the first couple of years I had my 
TQC. At first the car wouldn't die, but the engine woud turn off for an 
instant and then resume running. It finally degraded to the point where the 
engine whould shut down and you would coast to the side of the road. A big 
inconvenience in traffic. Sometimes it would re-start, sometimes it didn't.

It took me a while to figure this one out. On of the largest clues I had was 
when the car is running and then shut off, that tach would drop to zero. 
This indicated electrical to the coil as the tach signal comes from the 
coil. It turns out that on my car the Ignition Control Unit or ICU was 
flakey. It is a small box with a 7 pin connector whose output drives the 
coil. As I recall they are about $100 and available in the aftermarket. 
There is one listed in the Hella master cataolg. Once I replaced it, all the 
wierd ignition probelms went away. On my 83 TQC, it is located above the 
passenger glove box.
 -
Dave Lawson  dlawson@ball.com