Okay, I know this guy who is by no means too mechanically inclined. He has this nice Ford single axle grain truck that we would like to use. However, he couldn't get it to run. He said that he put a kit in the carb and that he put a new fuel pump in.

After some messing around with the distributer, redoing all the timing order, I finally got it to run. But here is the issue. She will start, purr like a kitten for about 10 seconds or so, and then it just dies. It's like it just runs out of fuel or something. Crank it for a while, leave it sit, and it will fire back up again and run for about 10 seconds and then die.

I haven't looked too much into it since then, but does anyone have an idea of what this may be? Is it possible that he hooked something up wrong on the fuel pump? I know nothing about Fords and just the timing threw me off since #1 cylinder isn't on the correct side! :D So any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

The truck would come in nice for picking up feed. The hoist and everything works very well if the truck runs!

Could have some rust or crud in the tank restricting it collapsed fuel hose from sitting so long

Ps please make sure the brakes are in top notch conditon please for the sake of everyone on the road brakes on some of them old ones werent great from the factory and w/some age.

Check to see if he's getting enough fuel if it's not that then it could be the float level in the carb.

What year and what motor???? Is it points or electronic ignition?

Honestly I know nothing about this truck besides he can't get it to run. He seems hesitant to let me work on it but then asks me about it. I was thinking about maybe the carb and float also. Since he said he put a kit in it, I would like to take it apart and see what he did. (Just the way I am!)

About the only thing else that I can tell you is that the truck has points on it. I checked them while I was redoing all the wires (Which he freaked when I yanked all the plug wires!) and they don't appear to be burnt and looked actually pretty nice. I did not gap them though or hook a dwell meter up yet.

Honestly I would like to load the truck up and bring it back home. Then I can work on it when he is not around. I think what I will do is suggest to him what was suggested here and let him decide what he wants to do.

Is that not a sign of water in the gas?

remove line that comes from tank and install a gas can and long long hose from gas can to fuel pump . prime and have gas can in safe area. see if truck runs. if its a holley carb should have a brass screw in plug on bowl to check fuel level while runniing for primary and secondary bowls. sounds like bad fuel pump from sitting to long gunk from old fuel builds up on valving in fuel pump and wont work.

First check to see if it getting fuel and has some fuel pressure, alot of these older trucks had fuel filters right on the fuel pump, blow out all the lines and be sure it is not vapor locked. Check to see that the points are around .018-.020 gap and consistantly stay that way. Have seen several fords with bad bushings in the distributor that would let the gap change while running. Coil may be getting hot also, seen this a few times also.

my neighbor came up last weekend with a 9n ford gasser tractor that he tuned up and was kind of running . and ask for a hand looked at brand new points and they were so bent up it wasn't funny broke out needle nose pliers and "adjusted" them so they hit straight and gave him sum adjustment all the way closed points were at .030 rig left purring like a kitten.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! I'm not sure when I will get out there again. He's about 20 minutes from where I live. I will try all of the suggestions though. To me, it does seem like a fuel problem. The gas can is an interesting suggestion. I will be sure to check the fuel lines to. I forgot that they can collapse with age and sitting. They look fine from the outside, but are squeezed shut on the inside.

Thanks again for all the ideas!!!!!