8BA, pops and backfires but no start.

[Ken Crans]

Imagine that..

[FordCustom]

Oh yeah.. The yellow wires eh? Well, in my defense they were pretty expensive even at employee cost, and were ordered by a number on a catalog page, to fit this "application". Well, they showed up, I opened the box, and voila, yellow.... I'd have been happier if they were black, but oh well. They will look nice with the red paint.

[Cecil/WV]

What have we learned from this thread?? 1- the wires need to be installed correctly and 2- an engine will run 180 off! I wonder what I did wrong when my engine wouldn't run when 180 off?? Now that's the question that will be hard to answer!.

[Mike51Merc]

Originally Posted by Cecil/WV

What have we learned from this thread?? 1- the wires need to be installed correctly and 2- an engine will run 180 off! I wonder what I did wrong when my engine wouldn't run when 180 off?? Now that's the question that will be hard to answer!.

Lesson here is that firing order is more than just a set of numbers. We live in a clockwise & right-handed world. When things go the other way it gets confusing, and this is coming from a left-handed guy.

When I swap distributor caps I always do it one wire at a time with the caps side-by-side.

[FordCustom]

I had plug number one on the right connection, but I ended up going the wrong direction after that. Apparently I was close enough on a cylinder or two, for it fire even out of sync as it was. I was floored when it first cranked up and ran. I figured even with the correct orientation it would at least take some effort to make it run. It started up like it was already in service, not like an engine that had sat for a few decades.

[Mart]

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Well, in theory at least, two of them were correct. No1 and the one 180 degrees round from it. Heaven knows what the other 6 were trying to do.

Mart.

[Buckelew]

My 59Y suffered the same problems for a long, long time; popping, sputtering, backfiring... I chased the darned problem for more than six months, still driving the car. Cops, kids, dogs, cats, cows all panicked when I'd drive by.

Turns out there was a tiny crack in the top of the two-piece cap, and a little play in the notch at 12 o'clock. Every time the car would warm up, that crack would get bigger, and the cap would spin the tiniest bit! Good Lord that was an irritating thing to find!

I'm glad your problem was easier to deal with.

[FordCustom]

I almost bought a 71 Torino GT once. The car I was trying to sell sold but only after the GT was gone. The GT's owner said he had tried everything to make run right, to no avail. He was selling it for $1300!!! While I was checking the car out I noticed a huge crack in the distributor cap. I guess karma yanked it out from under me because I didn't say anything. Oh well.. Water under the bridge.

[19Fordy]

Goody, goody gum drop. Well done. Glad you got it running.