Hello, I am new here. I am in need of help for my 1983 Ford F-150, 351w,C-6,dura spark 111 system. When i bought the truck, i was told they had to replace the relay behind the battery because it wouldn't shut off. It was hard starting and after warming up and running for approx. 15 minutes would shut off and not start, turn over but thats it. I replaced the cap, rotor,wires,plugs,ign. module,crank postion sensor and the eec relay behind the battery. It would start but not shut off unless i unpluged this eec replay. I had to replace the head gasket so i replaced the timing gears and chains. Now it starts hard if at all. When it does it's not right. I found that they removed the plug from the oil switch( not the sending unit) and there is a jumper wire to the choke (they spliced into the wiring harness from a nother hot wire). Please email me or ask me more detailed questions if it will help me out.

 

There is the slim chance that the choke re-wire may be part of the problem. It is originally hooked to the sta terminal on back of the alternator with a white/black wire. This wire has no voltage on it unless the engine is turning the alternator. Even then, other posters on here have reported it's only about 8 volts. So the combination of having voltage as soon as you turn the key, plus being a higher voltage(12 volts) may make the choke pull off faster than it should, making it cold natured and hard to start.

 

Welcome to FTE ihregistry

Glad to have you aboard! You have come to the right place for Ford truck help. There are many talented people here that can fix anything (I'm not one of those people, but I try.lol) I see you have already hooked up with one of the best. Franklin2

Again, welcome!

Chuck

 

I would remove the jumper from the choke and find out if the oil switch is working or not. I think that oil switch you're refering to is a temperature switch. The choke on my 351w was not kicking off and I found the switch was cracked and leaking oil. Replacing the switch fixed the choke problem.

Not stopping when switched off may be a problem with the wiring from the ignition switch. I think the 'run' wires go to both the coil and the ignition module. Look to see if any of those wires have been jumpered. If you have a volt meter, the 'tach' wire on the coil is supposed to have 5v with the engine off and the ignition switch on 'run'.

A few things I've learned about EEC III:

The computer can advance or retard the timing up to 50* either way. The only way to set up the timing correctly is to align the notch in the distributor shaft with the notch in the adaptor while the crank is at TDC. The allowable variation is plus or minus 4*.

Both blades on the distributor rotor and the X shaped conductor inside the top of the cap should be coated with about 1/32" of silicon grease. I think this is to prevent arcing. DO NOT grease the poles inside the cap.

The crankshaft position sensor is supposed to have 0.072" clearance between the tip of the teeth on the ring.

If you already know that, fine. If you need some more info on the distributor alignment I can give you a little more detail.

I didn't know that the EEC relay was located behind the battery. Is that the one closest to the BMAP sensor? If you've learned anything else about EEC III voodoo, please share! I'm still learning too and there seems to be far less information to be had about EEC III than any other Dura Spark ignition.

Scott

*edit* I took so long posting, I didn't see Chuck come in. Hi Chuck! I agree, Franklin2 really is knowledgable about this stuff. I always pay close attention to what he posts.