No spark. . .

[terrible one]

Okay, to start out, this is regarding a Ford 5.0L in an '84 Mercury Grand Marquis. I know, wrong forum, right? Well trying not to turn this into some long drawn out sob-story, I have to note that this is for a friend of mine who works with me at the restaurant. He missed work Friday because he couldn't come in because of his car not starting. He has no transportation. Today I went out and looked at the car for him and began trying to get it going again, and gave him a ride to work with me when it came time. This guy literally has $12 to his name right now, so I'm buying the required parts with him paying me back, but neither of us want to spend lots of money and get nowhere. Anyways, here's the story and the problem. I really hope someone here can help me out, because as of right now I'm an inexperienced 17 year old kid who wishes he had all of the answers haha. Mods, if you feel it's necessary, I understand this getting moved to off topic. . .

Alright, so my friend Steve says that he was driving, stopped, and the car just died. When he tried to start it back up, it would turn over but not fire. Luckily, the place he had stopped was his own driveway. Anyways, fast forward to when I come out. First thing I look at are the injectors (TBI car). They are squirting fuel fine. I then pulled a plug and grounded it against the engine while he tried to start it. No spark. Alright, there's the source of the problem. I pulled the cap and inspected it and the rotor. The cap was a bit corroded and worn, same with the rotor. I hoped that would be the problem, and the rotor was $5 or so and the cap $19. Bought them, installed them, still wouldn't fire, still no spark. By this time it was time for us to head to work, but on the way we went and got a new coil for it, as that was my next thought of what it could be. Tonight after work we tried putting the new coil on and nothing. However, when I was unplugging the old coil to plug the new one up, I saw where a wire was disconnected (all these wires, as you can see in the pictures, are pretty fucked up regardless) The wire that was broken had come out of a connector and went straight into the socket that plugs into the coil, so that's my suspect as of right now. Steve is really upset, and I told him I'd try and get on it. I'm going back out there tomorrow, and it is absolutely necessary that the car runs again for Monday.

The pictures I have attached are #1 of the thing that plugs into the coil, which looks pretty bad in general. #2 shows the wire that has come out of the connector. You can't tell so much because I took the end of the connector (the plastic piece that the broken red wire went into) off, but the red wire was at least at one time connected to the black wire/ connector. I don't know what it does or anything like that. The last picture is of what the black wire leads to. I don't know what it is either.

Sorry for the long drawn out bullshit story, but I just want as much insight and suggestions as I can get by tomorrow morning.

#1


#2


#3


Thanks so much.

[terrible one]

Okay well is there any way that I can see if I am getting spark from the coil to the distributor cap? I'm thinking maybe it's the pickup coil inside the distributor. ANYONE?!