Coil gets HOT and engine cuts out. 1984 F250

[Starliner]

Yes, back to basics, clean connectors, (and old baked wires at plugs), and ignition detent, (cant hurt), and maybe check under dash for issues as with "near fire" post.
That's the plan.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'm just having a hard time understanding the readings you're getting.

I mean, one should be 0 and the other 1.05-1.15
What do you get if you touch the probes of your meter together?
Is it autoranging? Or what scale do you have it set on?

I made a rookie mistake this afternoon by not moving my lead to A dc.
Took me a few minutes to make sense of what I thought I was seeing.

[Starliner]

I do get the tone when I put the leads together and zero resistance.
When i was testing however, it was giving the tone but took it's time for the numbers to settle down, like a count down.
Hmm, maybe try a different meter ok thanks.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'm not suggesting your meter is bad.

Just trying to get a baseline, and understand what you've got going on.

Even if the resistor wire was failing the bypass in start should read 0, or damn close to it.
Where is the decimal?
What meter do you have right now?

[Starliner]

Well, you guys have certainly given me the ammo to fix this. That, plus Gary's troubleshooting scans are all there is to fix this. I will figure it out but wont post until I fix it from here. I've sucked up way too much air on this from you guys.
You are the best.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Bandwidth is cheap these days.  

With your determination I'm sure you'll get to the root of it.
Good luck!

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, bandwidth is cheap.  Good luck!

[Starliner]

Here is the latest.
I replaced coil and ICM, and cleaned the body/engine grounds at one shot.  I figured doing them together would eliminate chasing a failure.
 It ran great for 2 days but on mile 35 she quit on me.  I am really stumped.  Again, good thing I have an emergency spark box.
I am not sure where to go with this from here.

[Starliner]

Connectors, yes, a logical measure, will do.

[Starliner]

Sorry Jim, I read back and you brought up meter issues.
I missed that post so never took your direction.
Will do thanks.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Certainly no need to apologise, Joe!

I mentioned it because it's hard enough to diagnose over the internet without a solid baseline.
So I ask pedantic questions.

I'm really hoping all your issues get resolved.

[Starliner]

The latest update: a few of you pointed to the distributor pickup. What I couldnt understand was why my emergency spark box did work after a failure.  While replacing the distributor I figured out that since the spark box relies on the battery for positive and ground, it does not rely on the distributor to eventually find ground.
I think it is fixed. It certainly runs better.  I will update if necessary.
I got a new Carquest distributor from Advance AP.  It is pretty bad quality but everywhere I searched I had no luck the car and the cap housing flop around, the retaining clips are junk metal and even after bending them tighter they still have give.
Garbage.
Thanks for all the help.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'm not sure what you're saying.
A new rebuilt distributor fixed the problem?

It was a bad ground tab in the distributor?

[Starliner]

Well, I needed the pickup coil but when I opened up my distributor I saw that the inertia weights were broken so I got the new distributor.
My GUESS is that the problems with the pickup coil was interrupting ground to spark plug.
Buy again, I had to wrap my head around an answer to why exactly my emergency spark box worked.
I didnt just want to fix it, I needed to know how it got fixed.

[ArdWrknTrk]

The pickup triggers the transistor in the module to open ground.(The little brass tab)
The flux field in the coil collapses and voltage is created in the secondary winding.
The rotor sends it to the right spark plug.