Sorry guys. I played with it a few days.
Most these parts are newer. Not new. I'm not throwing parts at it at all. So yesterday I replaced and grinded all the grounds and positive grounds. The new parts are fuel pump, new starter solenoid.
It ran great yesterday, I drove it around. Today it wouldn't start at all. It seems to try and start but won't.

 

Dose it crank over nice and fast like when it is cold now that you have the grounds fixed?
Now that we are on the 2nd page please make a signature with the trucks information, year / motor / transmission. as it will help us help you.

So lets say it cranks / turns over at the right speed then we need fuel and spark. Think you have a carb pop the filter off, open the choke, was it closed when you moved the throttle?
And look down into the carb and move the throttle you should see gas squirt that is good.
Now we need to check for spark. Did you try and pull the distributor at some point? If so if it was not tight the timing could have changed.
Pull the coil wire out of the distributor and hold it 1/8" to no more than 1/4" from ground (block) and when cranking the motor you should see a spark and hear a snap.

Is this your first car / truck with a carb & choke? There is a way to start the old motors. This is all if the choke is adjusted and working right.
Motor cold press the gas pedal1 time to the floor and let up, if it is really cold you may need to press it 2 times. Turn the key and try and start it.
Sometimes I hold the pedal down just a little and once running the choke fast idle should take over. If it dose not start stop cranking, 1 more pump and see if it will start.
Each motor / carb has its own way to start when cold it just takes time to learn what yours is.

When the motor is hot you should not need to touch the throttle but ..........
With todays fuel blends it likes to boil the fuel in the carb and flood the motor. Again you need to learn when this happens but you just need to hold the throttle wide open when cranking.
If it doers not start dont let up on the throttle keep it to the floor while the starter cools off and try again.
Hope that helps
Dave ----

 

Note to self: Quit buying mind-reading pills. They just don't work. Try as I might, I'm not able to read your mind here. I even removed my tin foil hat but it made no difference.

The preceding was industrial-strength humor, intended to make a lighthearted point. We still don't understand exactly what is happening. Two basic scenarios, with vastly different troubleshooting required:

1) The starter responds normally and consistently gets the crankshaft spinning at a healthy speed. The engine does not run after the key is released from the Start position.

2) The starter bogs down or does not respond when the key is held to the Start position.

We'd like to help but "seems to try to start" is just too vague.

 

The truck is,
1980 F250 300 inline 6 cylinder. 2wd

got that from post #2.

 

It will usually crank fine the first time but after a few tries it will get slower and slower. The battery will still be reading 12.5. I ran and cleaned all the wires, added a starter to frame ground as there wasn't one.

 

Thanks for the help Dave.
This is probably one of the newest trucks I've owned. I'm used to carb work. I've always since I got it had to give it full throttle on start up, engine warm or cold, well if I just drove it it will fire back up with no throttle.
I had my dad flip the choke up and down a few times while I trying to start, it did sound alot better. I yanked the carb off and cleaned it up, going to throw it back on tonight. You see, this is the stock aftermarket carb. My original carb I had a manual choke put on it and it always worked fine. When I bought the new one I stayed with the automatic choke, maybe put the manual back on?
It has plenty of spark, gas is pumping great!
I got the oil pump pin out the distributer so I'm going to put the new distrib on tomorrow. I've literly had it sitting on my shelf for a year. Can't hurt to put it on now. Sometimes the truck will crank a little better if i advance the timing but won't start.
The wierd thing it depends if I park it in the sun. It will usually fire right up but if I park next to the building in the shade it won't start. 1 day it's ok, the 2nd isn't. It's a hit or miss thing.

 

I brought up the harmonic balancer because.. I've tried to time it but the marks are off a few inches. I can only time it by the distributer.
I read somewhere that the balancer is a 2 piece design with a rubber insert. They said the rubber starts to slip over time and the marks will be off. I picked up a new one about a year ago also and looking at it it seems correct? Outter ring is solid, middle is rubber, and the smaller ring is solid..

 

Needs a paintjob. Colorado rust free but Kentucky is killing me with rust in just 3 years.

 

Can anyone point me to which vacuum line the advance hooks too? All my lines were taken off years ago. Also what is that switch with the burned up tube on it? Attached to hit at wide open throttle.

 

I'd also like to add. I'm doing this in my apartments lot so I only get to play with it on warmer days. And it's just me. So things that needs 2 set of hands I don't have. Making testing certain things almost impossible.

 

Im hoping the choke is part of the problem. I've always had issues with it. It won't start if I jam the choke open, but when my dad flipped it open and close a few times it did try to start. I do still want to add another good ground attached to the smog pump to ground the block. But I cleaned the ground attached near the distributer, starter to frame, battery to frame. Yeah I need to do the voltage drop test but it's hard by myself. Thanks for all the help guys!

 

For the vacuum advance get the motor up to temp and the 3 nipples on the carb they should have caps on them to start with the idle set to spec pull 1 cap off at a time and check for vacuum.
You should not have vacuum on the nipple at idle but then bring up the RPM and you should have vacuum if it is for the advance.
The others can be caped.
Dave ----

 

Yeah, I can't stress this enough. The voltage drop test I keep pimping will pinpoint the exact root cause of the slow cranking condition. If it's intermittent, duplicate the fault conditions as much as possible and then run the test.

You mentioned having cleaned the various cable connections. That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't test the cables themselves or the starter relay. Even if the cables are brand new, they may be undersized and restricting current flow.

You also mentioned measuring 12.5V at the battery. I'm thinking this was recorded at rest, with the circuit not under load? On a similar note, I wear size 12W shoes. Both values, whether your battery voltage at rest or my shoe size, are pretty much meaningless for troubleshooting a slow cranking condition. You need a voltage reading of the battery under the load of the starter.


Maybe temporarily get a girlfriend. They love helping with stuff like this during the early stages of a relationship. Once you figure out the problem, you can break up.

Or you can get a remote starter switch, such as this example from a certain unnamed tool store:

https://www.harborfreight.com/1224v-...tch-70597.html





To use, disconnect the wire from the small S terminal on the starter relay. Put one clip on the relay's S terminal and the other clip on the battery's (+) post. Transmission in neutral or park, and set the parking brake. When you press the button, the starter relay is energized, same as if you had turned the key to the Start position. The engine won't run because the ignition is off, but we're not concerned with actually getting the engine running right now. We're merely testing the starter operation.

 

For vacuum hoses, do you have a sticker like this on the radiator support,




This may help you too,
https://www.garysgaragemahal.com/1980-evtm.html

 

I just did a voltage drop test. The positive side was .7 when it Should be been under .5. The negative side was .4. Does that mean I should replace the positive wires? I put my new old distributer I had still in box on. Timed it as good as I could and the truck fired right up. Seems to be running well. But that's usually what it does. I'll see tomorrow if it'll start up to see if it fixed it. Im gonna go grab some new cables for it now 👍