Lets start by saying that I am not familiar with this engine. Its my dad's truck, I pretty much don't know anything about gasers. The truck is a 1989 Ford F-250 4x4 5-spd with the 351/5.8L (cannot remember what they called it back then).

My Dad calls me up and asks me to tow his truck to the ford dealer in town becuase it would not start. He said that it had been starting hard lately. I guess it backfires sometimes and usually when cranking it backfires right before it starts. Once he used just a little ether to get it started. Well before I could get over to his house to tow him he installed a new distributor cap and something else in the distributor (the part that turns, cant remember what thats called?). It still would not start. It seemed to still be cranking over pretty fast when i got there. However, it wouldn't make any firing sounds like it was trying to start and didn't backfire at all. So I hooked up the strap and started down the driveway. I stopped halfway down, and told him that maybe we should try to pull start it. I knew it was a long shot since it was cranking over good still but it couldn't hurt. So we tried it and sure enough it fired right up with no backfire and once running it ran like brand new. So we shut it down and tried to start it again by turning the key, it started but backfired just before it started again.

What the heck could cuase this wierd behavior? The reason I wanted to pull start it was because I had the WAG of maybe the starter was going bad and drawing so many amps that it couldn't make a spark. Could I have been right?

 

Could be possible I guess, or the battery has a weak cell and is not producing enough voltage for the starter AND electronic systems..
Maybe some one else has seen this happen & will come in and have a better answer for you.

 

At any rate that was sure a fast reply.