77 HIGHBOY TIMING QUESTIONS

[1977 HIGHBOY]

Hello old school Ford fans. I resently purchased a 77 highboy with 351m. When I bought it, some of the engine parts where on the front seat, and others where in a box. In any event, the truck is all back together however, I am having trouble dialing it in. When the engine is cold, it starts easy and runs great, but when I shut it off, it will turn over very slow and will not start. Now, I was able to troubleshoot this to the timing, because if I back the timing off, she will fire up with ease. Now, if I keep it backed off, the truck is sluggish. I even went as far as adjusting the sensitivity on the vacume canister, and still can't get it right. Any ideas?

 

[kenneth lucas]

Hello old school Ford fans. I resently purchased a 77 highboy with 351m. When I bought it, some of the engine parts where on the front seat, and others where in a box. In any event, the truck is all back together however, I am having trouble dialing it in. When the engine is cold, it starts easy and runs great, but when I shut it off, it will turn over very slow and will not start. Now, I was able to troubleshoot this to the timing, because if I back the timing off, she will fire up with ease. Now, if I keep it backed off, the truck is sluggish. I even went as far as adjusting the sensitivity on the vacume canister, and still can't get it right. Any ideas?

your starter may be getting hot . do you have headers?

 

[79FORDLOVER]

There are several possibilities to your problem. One big question is did you set your timing when it was hot or cold? Another is where do you have the vacuum supply hooked up to on the carb(ported or manifold)?Another is what kind of dist. are you running?And the last that i can think of at the moment is how good is the starter? Now to answer all these ?s correctly for you is that the timing should be set at operating temp,the vacuum supply should be hooked up to ported vacuum(only has vacuum when its being accelerated).And as far as the dist. is concerned it may or may not have mechanical weights that may be sticking to full advance on there part.I do believe without looking it up that it should have a base set of 8-10 deg. I hope that this is some help if all this checks out then let me know and i will do my best to help ya out some more i work on vehicles all day so i do have some good background on this matter. good luck and let me know what ya find and if ya get it fixed.........another newbie

 

[79extcab]

it could be a bad ground to if the truck has been siting a while

 

[1977 HIGHBOY]

There are several possibilities to your problem. One big question is did you set your timing when it was hot or cold? Another is where do you have the vacuum supply hooked up to on the carb(ported or manifold)?Another is what kind of dist. are you running?And the last that i can think of at the moment is how good is the starter? Now to answer all these ?s correctly for you is that the timing should be set at operating temp,the vacuum supply should be hooked up to ported vacuum(only has vacuum when its being accelerated).And as far as the dist. is concerned it may or may not have mechanical weights that may be sticking to full advance on there part.I do believe without looking it up that it should have a base set of 8-10 deg. I hope that this is some help if all this checks out then let me know and i will do my best to help ya out some more i work on vehicles all day so i do have some good background on this matter. good luck and let me know what ya find and if ya get it fixed.........another newbie

Hello 79Fordlover, Thanks for the info. My truck was at operating temp. and my vacume line is at a ported location. I know this because I could feel the suction on my finger when I raced the engine. As far as the distributer goes, I'm not sure what kind it is, but it looks like the original. When I pulled the cap off, I did not see the weights. I thought they where only on mechanical advance distributers. The sticker on the valve cover says to set the timing at 6 degrees BTDC. I am having a hard time reading the numbers on the damper, however I will come up with a way to make the numbers more readable. As far as the starter goes, when the engine does not turn over, I back the timing off, and it turns over quick, and starts up fast. This is why I know it's the timing. Again, thanks for the info, I was not sure if I was going to get a responce.

 

[79FORDLOVER]

Hello 79Fordlover, Thanks for the info. My truck was at operating temp. and my vacume line is at a ported location. I know this because I could feel the suction on my finger when I raced the engine. As far as the distributer goes, I'm not sure what kind it is, but it looks like the original. When I pulled the cap off, I did not see the weights. I thought they where only on mechanical advance distributers. The sticker on the valve cover says to set the timing at 6 degrees BTDC. I am having a hard time reading the numbers on the damper, however I will come up with a way to make the numbers more readable. As far as the starter goes, when the engine does not turn over, I back the timing off, and it turns over quick, and starts up fast. This is why I know it's the timing. Again, thanks for the info, I was not sure if I was going to get a responce.

Your welcome for the info.What i have done to clean the balancer off to see the marks is use a wire brush from the underside when the marks are at the bottom(meaning roll the engine untill those marks are at the bottom)this way your not fighting all the belts and so on. then mark either the 0 or the 6 with white out.(depending if your using an advance timing light or not)if thats what they are calling for.If it is the stock distributer then your right that it doesnt have weights.The starter still may be the issue even though you say that when you back the timing off it cranks easier....and i do believe alot of the parts places check them for free on a machine if you wish to have it checked for peace of mind.another thing that i thought of is to make sure that the distributer is installed in the correct clocking position(meaning that when the pointer and 0 mark lined up that the rotor is pointing to the #1 position. again good luck and keep me posted

 

[1977 HIGHBOY]

Your welcome for the info.What i have done to clean the balancer off to see the marks is use a wire brush from the underside when the marks are at the bottom(meaning roll the engine untill those marks are at the bottom)this way your not fighting all the belts and so on. then mark either the 0 or the 6 with white out.(depending if your using an advance timing light or not)if thats what they are calling for.If it is the stock distributer then your right that it doesnt have weights.The starter still may be the issue even though you say that when you back the timing off it cranks easier....and i do believe alot of the parts places check them for free on a machine if you wish to have it checked for peace of mind.another thing that i thought of is to make sure that the distributer is installed in the correct clocking position(meaning that when the pointer and 0 mark lined up that the rotor is pointing to the #1 position. again good luck and keep me posted

Thanks alot for the fast reply AND helpful wisdome. I think I will remove the starter and have it tested. My next step was to see if they sell a "high torque" starter for my application. By the way, that's a good as far as the timing marks go, I have both a wire brush and a bottle of white out handy.

Oh, by the way, I noticed that I should have put this topic in the 73-79 "tech support" section. I'm sorry about that, I'm new at this. I do have a few more questions about this truck, and since they are tech questions, I will start a new topic there. Thanks again for the help.

 

[1977 HIGHBOY]

your starter may be getting hot . do you have headers?

Sorry I did not reply sooner. No headers, just manifolds into dual exhaust, all the way back. The exhaust is close to the starter though.

 

[highboy73]

don't buy the high tq starter it's not the starter.back of the timing a bit and leave it at that.if you run it with the timing too far advanced it could run hot,detonate,waste gas.burn up your starter.

 

[1977 HIGHBOY]

don't buy the high tq starter it's not the starter.back of the timing a bit and leave it at that.if you run it with the timing too far advanced it could run hot,detonate,waste gas.burn up your starter.

I think you are right. I sat back and pondered buying the high torque starter, then thought to myself, if it's supposed to have one, ford would have put one in. I ended up just backing it off enough for it to start when it's hot, and said don't worry about the slight sluggishness it is a 30+ rear old truck. Also, that is one more thing off the list. Thanks for all the help.

 

[highboy73]

there are ways to get that sluggishness out of your take off.have you thought about recurving the distributer.adjusting your vac advance.differant accel. pump setting.if you run a holley you could change the setting or the cam for thr accel pump shot.squirters.Don't settle for it,just take it one thing at a time.
I'd start with adjusting my advance.and checking I have a good accel. pump shot.