Good morning all..as they say on the radio, first time poster, long time reader.

I bought a few months ago a 83 Ford F100 that I was going to use as a project car for my 15 yr olds 1st vehicle. When I bought it, it ran fine but needed alot of interior work done. Well, baseball season came and thte truck sat for about 5 months in the garage and I made the cardinal mistake of not turning it on every so often. It had, by the way, a brand new tank of gas put in in June.

Buddy of mine came over and we were going to work on it a bit..pulled it out of the garage and charged up the battery. It didnt turn over. So we put a few teaspoons of gas in the carb and it cranked up just fine. We let it run for about 20 mins then turned it off.

After we did some work on the interior ( new bulbs, shift indicator cable, lubed up the speedometer cable, ignition switch, etc ) , we went to crank it up again and it wouldnt start. More gas in carb..nothing this time.

Some testing we did...
1. Gas in Carb
2. Found a vaccuum leak on a hose on the left side of the air filter housing..replaced.
3. Replaced spark plugs. We thought possible carb flooded, but no plugs were wet. As there was rust on the plugs, I decided to replace them anyway.
4. Screw driver spark test on distributor. This came back as positive.
5. Screw driver spark test on spark plug cables..nothing.
6. Took off fuel filter to make sure there was no blockage.

Now, I will say that I suck at mechanical things ( I work in IT ) , so I rely on beer and my friends to help out on this stuff. Could the spark plug wires be bad?

The truck will crank and it feels like it wants to turn over, just never does. I will also say that there is a electrical draw somewhere that we havent found, could a dead cell battery be the culprit?

Thanks for some leads...

 

Sometimes they say "Longtime caller, first time listener."

Welcome to FTE, btw.

One thing that's important to note, whenever someone says "it has spark"; it matters a lot as to what kind of spark. A nice fat, bluish spark that audibly snaps is OK. A weak reddish or yellow spark won't have enough oomph to jump the gap under actual compression in the cylinder.

Whenever a question arises about a battery, put it on a charger. While batteries can be damaged by overcharging this takes dedicated effort, going on a two-week vacation etc.

 

Welcome to the forum, kfain71!

What engine? Often times, when there is a mysterious electrical draw, it pertains to an added on trailer hook-up or a replacement stereo unit.

 

Oh..straight 6 engine..I got lucky when I bought it.

The truck currently has no stereo in it, but has the leads for a pre-amp. We thought about your suggestion yesterday and capped off all the ends to the stereo.

We got too much into the motor not turning in to test for more draw afterwards.

 

I'm having a similar issue with mine 81 f150 300cid. Truck was run out of gas and broke a coolant line, draining a considerable amount of fluid. But it won't start, just crank.

 

Welcome to the forum, Mike Jahnke! You will get more responses by making a new thread for your truck and its issues.