ok so i'm at the atm, needed gas money, go figure huh? sa anyway there i am beep beep beep pushing buttons getting out another $100 and my truck just shuts off. i look at my girlfriend and say what did you do that for? thinking that she had turned the key off, but as soon as i saw the key still in the on position i knew, ignition module.
so my boss came by with his company 350 and gave me a chain pull back to the shop, got the module off and went to my local parts house, out the dooor for under $150 and got a new winter wiper blade, a cap and a rotor too, so i didn't think that was to bad. so back to my truck we go, parts install and vroom! up and running!! sweet! but.... i had to turn the distributor in order to get the module off, no small feat! can you say aluminum and steel contact rot? so back onto subject, i read the timing info tag and it says yadda yadda warm engine, shut off pull thingy, start up, 10 degrees, easy enough, right? so i put an abrasive wheel on the die grinder and clean the harmonic ballencer looking for the timing mark, onlything i see is a single cut, not the two i'm used to from other fords, well ok, i warm the engine then pull the link and restart it, wont idle, turned it alittle clockwise and got it to run but i'm nowheres near the mark on the harmonic ballencer, and cant turn it enough to get anywhere near it. so i dinked with it enough to get it to run, and put the link back in and i'm pinging real bad now, number one is still the drivers side front cilynder, right? or am i missing something dumb here like its timed off number two or something?

Nah, ford v8's always time on front right. Your harmonic damper can be slipped- confirm the timing mark by pulling plug 1, putting a broomstraw in the hole, turn the engine with a socket on the center bolt (if it is worn out enough) until the straw peaks and starts going down again, see if the timing mark is under the marker. If not make a new mark with paint or change the damper. If the engine is pinging, you can time by ear some by turning dist. counter clockwise(retard) until performance is better, but you don't get perfect emmissions results that way. Personally, on a non-emmissions '59, with gas at $2.50 a gal, I don't use a timing light anymore, I advance as far as I can get without making it hard to start. (255 V8 never pings).

thanks jo as it turns out it was my own dumb a$$ fault. i was timing off of #5!!! duh!as i recalll from my racing days, had a 79 ltd two door that could run with the camaros! advanced = perfomance and retarded = economy, of coursr there's that thing about the old beyond tdc and the newer before tdc, too

I find the more spark advance I run the more economy I get, but if I get too far it fires backwards starting up and won't start. I've got a solenoid valve shutting off the vacuum to the advance diaphragm on my distributor during starting to give me a little extra milage. I'm up to 17 mpg suburban, a record for my 4200 lb tool hauler. (probably 300 lb of tools in it when I go to the country and read milage). Modern trucks read the vacuum with a computer and MAP sensor, you can''t fool it.