Toyota Repair: 89 Corolla 1600 died in parking lot no spark, salvage yard, knowlegde

Question
Aloha Ted,
My daughters 89 Corolla sedan died in the parking lot, running fine and just quit. I have fuel, turns over well and seems to have no spark. I read one of you answers and you mentioned igniter problem. Before I order the igniter at 2 - 3 hundred. Anything else it might be, Coil, timing belt? And if I go with a junk yard used what are the chances of it going out soon also? Thanks for the help Ted I am amazed at your knowlegde and expertise!
Billy M

Answer
Check the timing belt first, remove the distributor cap and crank the engine over, make sure the rotor in the distributor rotates, if not the belt broke, if it does it can still be the timing belt it may have just jumped on the pulleys and now the timing is off but in that case you would still have spark at the plugs, so I don't think that's the case, if the belt is good the first thing I suspect is the distributor, check the coil inside the distributor and see if there are any cracks in it or if there are burned through spots, especially underneath the coil and on the epoxy filled areas, igniters do fail but the distributor fails much more often, If I owned this car I would get a distributor from a salvage yard and install it to see if it solves the problem, you should be able to get one for about $50 so it's well worth the investment, it's a 50/50 chance that it will fix it providing the timing belt is not the problem, good luck with this and let me know what happens.