Hi all,

So for almost a year now I have been trying to fix my truck so it was truly a reliable daily driver. Now mind you I have been driving daily but as far reliability goes, well that was hit or miss.
My truck is nothing special, other than to me. 1972 F100 360 Auto Long bed. After redoing the brakes from calipers to master cylinder to brake booster, I started on the go part. Rebuilt the Autolite 2100 Carb, and then had an ignition or fuel issue. It was similar to many other threads with sometimes a cold start issue, sometimes a hot re start issue. Seemed electrical at times, other times fuel related. Maybe the choke. The idle seemed to jump all around too.
Now I have spent countless hours reading threads and while I had known of the ballast resistor wire I guess I underestimated its importance. What so far has seemed to relieve all of these issues was the Power Relay kit from PerTronix. It's just their basic relay kit that bypasses the ballast resistor from the ignition switch to the coil. Now I did switch back to a PerTronix Ignitor II after putting in a new distributor with points and condensor at the same time....but still I can't say enough about the Power Relay kit.
It was so simple to install, and I didn't want to mess with the original wiring to the ignition switch so this seemed like the simple do it yourself option.
The 360 just jumps to life when I turn the key now. No more long crank starts. Idles like a dream. I had no idea the 360 had this much torque and acceleration. A true jump to reliability. The kit came with great instructions and enough wiring to put the relay on either side or wherever you'd like. I put in on the driver sides since the PO had put in relays for brighter headlights next to the battery, and just ran the red power wire across the top of radiator but behind everything so it's all hidden.
Perhaps this will help someone else before they make the same mistakes I have.

Cheers,
Binky

 

It sound like you had the old ign. switch with the round plug terminals that over heat can cause hard starting 99% of the time. Yup Ford screw up 40yrs. ago.

I had the same troubles and took me a number of yrs. to figure it out.

When replacing my old ign. switch & key was when, I saw the burnt ign. plug terminal.
So got a new plug and installed it with new ign. switch and the engine fired up as soon as, I turned the key.

So a yr. later, I bought the correct type switch & plug that had the flat blade terminals & plug.
I then remove the old style switch that will fail again one day.

Never any re starting issues with the newer switch

Orich