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Just kidding... but these wires have been hanging above my workbench since 1999. I fixed up and painted my 54 in 1998-99. Of course these wires were replaced at that time. It's amazing my truck ran so well in 1999. I think the longer one is a distributor wire.
There was a thread last week or so about someone's thread bare wire and it made me think about these.
I found similar in distributor going to points, wire to distributor had been replaced. I don’t know how it actually ran. Insulation must have been in just the right spots.
Last edited by Christopher2; Jun 14, 2026 at 06:27 AM.
Are you sure you didn't sneak into my shop to take these ?
Terry
Nope . You got some like this?
A lot of the original parts I replaced are hanging in my garage... steering wheel, brake and clutch pedal pads, V8 emblem , hood F100 emblems. Even the tailgate and grille!
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Mine says hello! This is what probably caused hard starting, backfiring and stalling recently? I’m not sure.
The newly rebuilt distributor made a huge difference. Probably the first good one I’ve had on the truck cause it never started this good for this long.
Apparently in speaking with a someone that has experience on this, I learned that these original cloth covered wires had upgraded to a rubber coated one either from Ford or from later supplier's? There’s a Napa part number for this . Has anyone had experience with this? My new distributor was rebuilt with the nice looking factory correct cloth wire but these were actually wear items and on the tune up schedule; being checked and replaced when needed. All new to me.
I have read that the wire used from the factory was a special kind with more and finer strands than usual, and alloyed to provide more flexibility. That kind of wire is used on test leads, too (for voltmeters). The original cloth covering didn't provide resistance to bending the way modern automotive wiring insulation would. This all was to prevent the wire from affecting the movement of the plate during vacuum advance. I have seen the rubber-coated ones (in very poor shape), they looked pretty old, and were hardened and cracked.
Plenty of people just use regular wire, and it works. I used the NAPA wire, which is a single piece all the way from the coil to the points, instead of going to a feedthru on the side of the distributor. It seemed to be the correct flexible type of wire. It was p/n ECH LW40.
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