Can someone out there help me? I'm trying to help a buddy out and as of yet have not seen his van. It's a 2003 Windstar with the 3.8L. I'm feeding his descriptions to a guy I work with who worked on the Ford hotline for years. The ford guy says he needs an ignition control module because the "thick film resistor" is heating up. The Ford dealer I can actually get through on the phone has no idea what an ignition control module is (does HIS Ford have a magneto?) and a google search is coming up blank.
Can anyone shed some light on this. He (the Ford hotline guy) says he's NOT talking about the coil, but I think the module is built into the coil housing????
A thick film resistor is most likely going to be mounted on a circuit board of some type, and is the sort of thing you're not going to be able to fix at home, so the whole circuit board/module/whatever it is will have to be replaced.
Hal
HalfDork
12/13/08 12:56 p.m.
Not sure if the Windstar has a seperate ICM or if it is part of the Powertrain Control module (PCM) like on my 2001 Focus. But either way it is like stuart_in_mn says, that resistor is part of some control module which will have to be replaced.
Suggest you try another Ford dealer. Even if the Windstar does not have an ICM they should know that the ignition is controlled by the PCM.
They have you looking for the TFI (Thick Film Ignition) module which was used on the old EEC-IV systems which IIRC was phased out sometime in the mid to late '90's when OBDII became the order of the day. They were mounted on the side of the distributor for ages, then they were moved to the firewall on a heat sink and yes they would get hot and go tits up on a very regular basis.
That vehicle should have COP (Coil On Plug) ignition meaning it shouldn't have a TFI module.
Could they possibly go tits down on occasion? 
i thought the 3.8 had a coil pack ignition like the 4.2 from the trucks did? iirc, there was an ignition module that the coil pack sat on top of, which all sat on top of the intake manifold on the trucks, and i think on top of the valve cover in the fwd 3.8's
EastCoastMojo wrote:
Could they possibly go tits down on occasion?
Only if they wanted to be on top. 
Jensenman wrote:
EastCoastMojo wrote:
Could they possibly go tits down on occasion?
Only if they wanted to be on top.
i like the way ECM thinks. Jensenman, you gotta get out more often. Sometimes you gotta try to make a puppy!
Um, how did I ever forget puppy makin'?
