OK, Bob, I'm with you.

Couple questions first. Are you dealing with an original wiring harness? Does the insulation look like it is crumbling?

With you on the reason for the car. A BIL keeps an old Volvo because his F350 isn't really necessary to haul his butt to work every day.

OK, so you don't need a Bentley. That's correct. It is for us hobbyists. Between the Haynes and this forum, you can have everything you need.

The temp sensor would be making the car too lean to start if it shows up shorted. That's most likely a result of or related to the crumbling wiring.

Getting 12V to the coil positive also sounds like wiring harness fun. The map shows a ballast resistor, so the battery (from ignition switch) arrives on a blue wire but it is brown from the ballast resistor to the coil 15. The blue wire originates on the unfused side of the fuse panel, rather than directly from the ignition switch. Odd, though, I don't recall a ballast resistor in my two B23F cars. Maybe never had a need to look for it?

Here are some links to my pix:
large map of 84 engine management
what my 84's wiring harness looked like inside the sheathing

And a pic of a temp sensor duly decrepitated -- in this case open and making things really rich. You get to it by removing the AMM hose and flame trap hose to remove the connector (rather blindly) and then use a deep 19 socket on a 10" extension 3/8 drive to pull and replace it. Don't lose the copper washer, and don't bother draining the coolant if you have the new sensor ready to thread in.


--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Mother Superior called all the nuns together and said to them, 'I must tell you all something. We have a case of gonorrhea in the convent.' 'Thank God,' said an elderly nun at the back. 'I'm so tired of chardonay.