Ok. I fixed my test light and hooked it to the pos and neg on the coil. no light with key on.  hooked it to the pos on the battery and neg on the coil and turned the key. the light pulsed with the engine. what does it all mean.

I got a hold of a used distributor and threw it in. I guess I have a spare now. It has the same result. All multimeter tests are the same. What now. The actual keyed ignition switch bad? could it be that simple? Or back to the control module behind the glove box. I was under the impression that the module dealt with the carb and emmissions. Nothing to do with the ignition. As far as the ignition switch, maybe it turns the motor but doesn't send energy to the coil. I had an escort exp that had the ignition swich housing crack and the motor turned but wouldn't start until I replaced the switch. I guess I'll try that next unless someone has a better idea.

replace the coil

Hot wire it.  connect a wire to the positive side of battery and positive side of coil, should run.  If so you need to find out where you are losing your power somewhere between the coil and ignition switch.  I would suspect a poor connection at the connector.  you might check to see what the voltage is key on on the other side of the connector.

I swapped coils, so I will try the hot wire. I suspect the ignition switch at this point. Can I go with a wire from the positive side of the battery directly to the positive side of the coil and drive it down the road like that?

yes, dont drive any further than you have as you may burn up the coil.

Have you tried checking the voltage, key on, with the pos voltmeter probe on the positive coil input wire and the negative probe of the voltmeter on the negative battery terminal? You might just have a bad ground...

You must have the correct type of coil, I agree with Digger check that it is grounding properly

I did a couple checks. Key on,  Pos coil to neg battery, 11.6...   Key on, neg coil to pos bat. .56.  I will pull the ignition switch, which I assume is seperate, and near the ignition key tumbler assembly and inspect. if memmory serves me correctly, The escort exp. (that my 16 year old boy totalled on the first day of summer last year) had a similar problem. For some reason I went right to the ignition tumbler in this case. It was doing pretty much the same thing. I figure that if I throw the right part at it, I will eventually fix it. and have a whole bunch of spares. This way,  instead of paying 300.00 or more for diagnostics, I get a bunch of extra parts. However, I am tired of 3 people having to share one car. When I do figure it out, with the help of all of you, I will post the details and this way the next guy doesn't have to go through the head aches I am going through.

Key on,  Pos coil to neg battery, 11.6...   Key on, neg coil to pos bat. .56. 

That sounds like a bad ground to me...

If your getting battery voltage at the coil key on, the ignition switch is good.  This may sound stupid, butt have you removed the distributor cap and made sure the distributor is turning when cranking the engine?

I got it running. I believe it was all in the distributor. I had reinstalled the replacement distributor a tooth or two off. I will post a follow up tomorrow. thanks everyone for all the help.

That wouldn't explain why it worked fine, then just quit while you were waiting on traffic...

When was the last time you replaced the timing belt? it should be done at least every 60,000 miles on these engines. I would say it either jumped time from a worn timing belt slipping or possibly even the crank keyway on the timing belt pulley might have gotten messed up if the nut worked loose...

I will  post what I learned this weekend so someone else doesn't go through the same mistakes I went through. It was so simple I could wretch. I could kick myself or at least I should kick myself.

I finally got it figured out. I originally checked for fuel pressure and thought I had it. Having been dead for two days, she actually started and drove for 30 miles to my work only to die when time to leave. I had done all kinds of electrical trouble shooting with the my mind convinced that it was all electrical.

I will have to go and document the electrial test results when I have time so I will know what the normal reedings are. The vehicle runs fine now.

Here's what I found was the problem all along.   The mechanical fuel pump of all things.  I just put a fuel regulator on her   about a month ago. It is set at somewhere around or less than 2 psi. I think what might have happenned is the regulator put strain on the tired old fuel pump. I pulled the old one off and put the new one on. It still wouldn't start, no gas.  I looked at the old one and tryed to see how it worked. I then pulled off the new fuel pump and moved the mechanism.  I then pulled the fuel pump rod out of the engine and inspected it. I noticed that it was a little hard to pull out by finger tip. I pulled it out with the needle nose pliers. I wiped it off and put some lucas on it, and slid it back in. I again made sure the fuel pump spring was functioning and reinstalled the fuel pump. It started right up.

I believe the culprit was a combination of the regulator wiping out the fuel pump, the fuel pump rod having a little sludge on it, and the fuel pump spring being too weak to keep the rod in contact with the cam. Eventually, the rod settled up against the fuel pump lever and didn't have away to make it back over to the cam. Thus rendering the fuel pump ineffective.

The lesson learned being to check a little harder for fuel first, and be selectiive of what parts you want to throw at a vehicle. In this case, I only had less than 50.00 in a distributor in addition to the 50.00 for the fuel pump.

My only concern know is that the fuel pump might stress under the force of the regulator but I don't anticipate this being a problem because there is a return line to the fuel tank that keeps the fuel cycling to keep the fuel pump cool. I suppose all mechanical fuel pumps work on this principal but not sure. I haven't had one go bad before therefor I never felt the urge to see how one worked. I stuck with the mechanical because I didn't want to trust an electrical one.   I think it just happenned to be the original fuel pumps time to give out. Had I not been going on 3 hours sleep a day, I probably could have reasonned a little more effectively and saved myself alot of time and headaches.

Now, if there is an advantage to an electical over a mechanical fuel pump, I'm open to hearing the pros. Thanks again for all your suggestions. I learned alot about all the other electrical stuff anyways.