with key in II position I have 12V at yellow wire going into coil. I took the distributor cap and rotor which was sitting loose in the C-shaped shaft out and got a brief look at the ICM before it got too dark and I got too many mosquitoe and no-see-em bites... there seems to be 12V at each of the ICM terminals... I couldn't see the ground wire... there is lots of oil and crud below the distributor and all around the valve cover as oil had started leaking out from there last year following an oil overfill about the time this whole problem started... I plan to replace those gaskets and stop the oil leaks soon... many moons ago when I had swapped out-and-back-in the ICM and changed the rotor I taped up that wire with the missing sheathing but the tape probably is not staying on that small peice of wire... should I not use some heat-shrink or something more permanent on this wire? Many moons ago I only swapped out-and-back-in the ICM as I experienced the same shut-down failure with the new replacement ICM and also I replaced the rotor.... but I didn't replace the rotor cap or any other of the rotor parts. I did at that time replace all spark plugs and spark plug wires and it was clear there there was some oil fouling of the plugs.

 

I took the ICM out. It had oil all over the underside and around it. I inspected the unsheathed wire on the ICM that I spoke of in earlier posts and it seems to still be taped up good. However, I noticed that the yellow sheathing on one of the two yellow-sheathed wires going into the magnet was off for about 1/2 inch. I couldn't remove the magnet because one of the small philips screw's head is stripped. I removed the black plastic holding the two yellow-sheathed wires together and pulled more of the two wires through on the distributor side to work with them. Both had brittle, cracked, crumbling sheathing. I applied heat shrink tape to one and electrical taped both of them after stripping the electrical tape to half-width. I started the car and drove for less than 10 minutes but my hopes were dashed again as it failed and wouldn't start.

 

What else inside the distributor could be failing? I appears that oil must be coming in at the shaft from the back side of the distributor. It's looking to me that I may need to replace the distributor (parts stores have for around $160) and also replace valve cover gaskets to keep oil from fouling new distributor.

 

A replacement distributor on ebay is available for $89 inc. shipping. This is probably best solution.

good luck