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I bought a 1971 F-100 with a 390 a couple of months ago. Drove it home with no issues at all. Been doing some stuff to it at home to get it in better shape (shocks, brakes, etc). Every time I started it, it would have one or two very slow cranks then come to life. Went out the other day and two cranks, then dead. The battery was 8 years old so it got replaced. Turned over like expected but would not start. I noticed it got put on backwards due to both cables being red. I fixed that and still wouldn’t start. New solenoid and new starter. Cranks great but no start. Has 2-3 gallons of gas. Newer coil. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Do I need to change the fuel filter?
And don’t throw away the old parts yet!
Unfortunately, these days, replacing parts just gives more opportunity for bad parts to be installed. Especially when it comes to the Ford starter relay/solenoid.
Slow cranking, then quick cranking could be failing battery cables, or failing starter, or too much initial ignition timing.
Among other things…
Cranking the starter, but not starting the engine could be anything at this point. As already mentioned, check for spark and check for the presence of gas.
Easy to check for gas, by removing the air cleaner and rocking the throttle lever back-and-forth by hand while you watch for squirts of fuel.
If you see liquid squirting out of the squirters (accelerator pump nozzles), then gas isn’t the problem.
There is gas in the carburetor but no spark. Picking up some points, a condenser and a coil to see if that does it. Thank you and I’ll post an update once resolved.
I forgot to mention, modern points and condensers are third items on the list of crappy parts that give people headaches.
Used to be you could buy a new part and it was guaranteed to work so you could throw parts at a problem and eventually fix it. Now all you’re doing is add more potential problems.
go ahead and put the new parts in, but like I said, don’t throw away the old ones.
Most of them are easy to test.
I’m not sure what items, if any, can be damaged by connecting the battery backwards. It’s happened to the best of us, but I don’t remember hearing about any damaged parts.
I wonder if it can bugger anything up? Maybe some of the other members know if that might lead us down a path of figuring this out.
I’m not sure what items, if any, can be damaged by connecting the battery backwards. It’s happened to the best of us, but I don’t remember hearing about any damaged parts.
I wonder if it can bugger anything up? Maybe some of the other members know if that might lead us down a path of figuring this out.
I had my ignition coil wired backwards and mine still ran. Took a little longer to start but it was still going. These older engines are pretty idiot proof thankfully.
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of coils wired backwards. They almost always seem to work perfectly fine, with no glitches. But hooking the whole battery up backwards, I’m not sure.
New coil installed today and no spark from the coil wire. All (5) fuses are good. Cranks like a charm. Has gas. No burnt or broken wires can be found. Was gonna replace the points but found this under the cap. Don’t know what that is or how to check it.
I guess that is an electric distributor system. I have no idea how to tell if that is bad. I did read the other post “1971 F100 bad coil” or something like that. It might be time for me to bring in a mobile mechanic!
That’s a very common Pertronix Igniter II trigger system. They make their own distributors, but it’s more common to see the points conversion kits put into the old distributors.
As aftermarket units go, they are actually fairly reliable. Some people have trouble with them, some people swear by them
I swear by them. But I’m pretty sure they’re sensitive to reverse voltage.
However, there may be an easy way to test them. I just don’t know what that is.
You might get on the Pertronix website and see if there is a Tech page on how to test for a bad one.
Probably need a multimeter and that’s about it.
Oh, and for future reference, the two wires coming out of the distributor body are dead giveaways that there are no longer points under the cap.
Surprised you didn’t even pop the cap just to see what you’ve got, because after so many years, things are often changed from original.
But a red and a black wire are dead giveaways that it’s not points. Points only have one black wire coming out of the distributor and going to the negative side of the coil.
If the starter cranks, the fusible link should be good because that kills power to the rest of the truck. Or usually does anyway.
But you can certainly check for power at the red wire of the Igniter in the distributor.
Just like you can check a coil for spark by applying 12 V power to the positive side, and an intermittent ground to the negative side.
Every time you disconnect the ground, you should get a spark out of the center wire.
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