I would love to help you with it, but I am not real familiar with MSD stuff since I never had good luck with it. The move the distributor and it dies sounds like a wiring issue, something open circuiting as you disturb it. One question, does the distributor provide a ground for the system like Ford does with the DSII? You could be losing the ground as you move it. Try moving the distributor a small amount clockwise (advance) with the engine off, then snug it upo and see if it will start.

The stall when you give it gas is hopefully due to the timing at TC.

 

Opened up my cowl and did my best to scrape, brush and clean the old sealant out.
Chipping it out was a *****, and I could only get down so far on the sides.

Wipe down with naptha and then with lacquer thinner.
Gunned on a urethane sealant meant to adhere TPO to metal.
Drizzled some self leveling sealant into the seams I couldn't reach.

I suppose I'll flood it with a hose in the morning and see how I did.

 

Sounds like a real pain. But, what does "TPO" mean? NASA talk?

As for what I did, I cranked the engine in Dad's truck ~1 turn. As described in Dad's Truck Build this was a red-letter day.

 

It sounds like there is a timing issue. We could use some more information on your truck.(year, model, drivetrain, stock, modified, etc.) It will help us, help you. Did you have the distributor recurved to match your motor?(correct weights and springs for the mech. advance.)

 

Something similar happened to me when I bought my truck, the guy I bought it from gave me a bill of sale in his wife's name, but the title had his father inlaws name on the title, which the title said "GIFT" on it, so he gave us the title like that, but when we took it in, they just skipped the guy I bought it from and gifted it to us, didn't even show them the bill of sale, I didn't have to pay sales tax either, just a $27 fee for title transfer. That couldn't have worked out any better for me lol.

Hopefully all goes well for you.

 

My mom dropped my truck off at the local community college today, they're going to do the body and paint for me. I went there during high school for some automotive classes and know the instructors, so I asked if they needed a project and they said OK. Should get a pretty decent paint job for material cost, and the truck was just going to be sitting at my house the rest of the year anyway while I'm at school driving my beater Subaru.

 

I have a buddy that dropped off his 78 F150 at one of those community college courses. He got it back last week looking worse than when it went in. Bad worse. And he knew the instructors...

 

He should of backed away from the first quarter project students.

 

That makes the instructor look like a jack *** then. I feel sorry for the body shops looking to hire someone out of that school. Your buddy's truck should have never left without looking really good.Part of learning how to do bodywork is knowing how to fix the stuff you screw up in order to get to the ultimate goal.

 

My truck is an 82 F150, manual transmission 4X4, 351W stock engine "rebuilt", and I am using the vacuum advance not the mechanical advance. I have the MSD box wired up with the hot wire going to the original coil positive, the battery cables hooked up, and a MSD distributor that just plugs into the cord coming from the harness as well as the orange wire going to the positive side of the coil and the black to the negative. Last night I tried to crank it to mess with the timing some more and now it doesn't even seem to be getting spark at all. Are all MSD ignitions this hard to work with?

 

I haven't personally had any experience with the MSD.
My truck has the 351W HO and came with the Duraspark system.

I replaced the module 1 time...

If indeed your MSD is bad, You might consider converting if it is going to cost big bucks..
The Duraspark sytems seem to be RELIABLE...Just my opinion..Trav..

 

I'm pretty confident it will turn out good. I was a student there briefly, and it seemed like all the stupid kids went into the technician side, while the body and paint guys were really professional and actually gave a crap.

 

Now there's a resounding endorsement: He gives a crap!

 

It is nice to know that there are STILL some people around that CARE..

BTW, Gary, I'm still listening for the sound of a V8 Ford motor...

 

Bamafan,

There are two MSD diagrams on the bottom of this page; Duraspark II