Yes, I know that this is an easy one that most could do with their eyes closed. But somebody somewhere hasn't done it so when I did one recently I took pictures to document it. Hopefully this will help somebody eventually.

Step 1: Remove distributor cap. There are two screws, one is circled in red, one is on the other side of the cap. They take a phillips screwdriver or a 7/32" nut driver. If you remove the coil wire and one or two plug wires you'll be able to set the cap aside and leave the other wires connected.

You should now have something that looks like this:

That black thing in there with the wires plugged into it is the ignition module. Remove the three wire connectors. One is inside the cap and is shown with the yellow arrow. The other two are outside the distributor cap and can't be seen in this photo. Remove the two screws (circled in red) that hold down the ignition module. They are 7/32" hex heads.

It should now look something like this:

Clean up all the dirt and goo in there and make it look like this:

Now spread the new goo (it should be included with the new module) on to the mounting surface of the module and re-assemble. Piece of cake.

One final thing. Use a genuine GM module. Don't use a module that looks like this or you'll be doing the job over again soon.

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Doug Chase
Chase Race
Custom: cages, exhausts, fabrication
Duvall, WA
425-269-5636

Also, be sure to clean the screws that hold down the module. The module actually grounds to the distributor body through the screws.

and even with a new gm module, they only include dilectric grease. everyone i have heard says to use ONLY heat sink compound. i went ahead and cleaned the base, installed NEW ac delco screws, NEW ac delco module and radio shack heat sink compound(white goopy lookin stuff) and i havent had the usual problems that plague alot of fieros.

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Keith
Topsail Beach,NC
86&87 Fiero GT
86&96 Corvette
04 Harley Davidson Softail
73 Lotus Europa Twin Cam
86 Lotus Turbo Esprit

"He who dies with the most toys wins!!!"

Can someone explain exactly what the 'goo' is for?

The supplied grease is dielectric grease, good for insulating the heat sink on the bottom of the module from making electrical contact to the distributor. THe heat sink paste is a ceramic based compound specifically designed to isolate electricity, and promote heat disapation. It will keep your ignition module cooler, and make it last longer.

The Ignition module has a derating curve of Watts/Degrees I dont know the specifics of the graph, but as the temp rises, the amount of energy disapated by the module (watts) decreases. Therefore, to maintain a working ignition module, you should try to keep it as cool as possible.

quote Originally posted by Fiero_Adam: Can someone explain exactly what the 'goo' is for?

In simple terms, it helps cool the ignition module.

As for the effectiveness of the various compounds p8ntman442 mentioned, I'll let you know. I replaced the ignition module on my Formula a few months ago and I used the Radio Shack heat sink grease above (I've had that module sitting around as a spare and lost the grease that it came with). The car in the photos is a customer car that I worked on last week. This one got the grease that was supplied by GM with the module. If either one dies any time soon I'll let you all know.

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Doug Chase
Chase Race
Custom: cages, exhausts, fabrication
Duvall, WA
425-269-5636

Great write-up Doug, something all V6 fiero owners should know !!

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fierogt28

I used radio shack heat sink compound 10 yrs ago on a ac delco ignition module and it worked like a charm. I even used computer epoxy to glue the heat sink on.