Distributor Problem?? Or.....???

[OneTuffHonky]

Howdy Fellas,
Been awhile since I was last on here, with the nicer weather and work schedual changes its hard to find the spare time to dink around on the computer.
So heres the problem with my 78 shortbed. Its got the 400 and the 4spd to get me through the fears. It seems to run good so long as I am not winding up the motor in between gears. As long as I shift at normal shift point I dont have a problem but when I need the extra acceleration and rev the motor out before shiftiing the engine starts to cut out, run rough, backfire out the exhaust and lacks the power. Anyone have a clue what this might be? I was thinking it had something to do with maybe the vaccum advance not working properly anymore? I have plenty of vaccum going there, just not sure if I am looking in the right place or if I should be looking somewhere else. I dont have a tach in the truck so I cant tell ya where or at what RPM it starts to act up. Any other ideas would help since I got the weekend to work on her. Thanks in advace guys. ~Jason

[buffs 78 ford]

Sounds more like a weak coil or coil wire.

[OneTuffHonky]

Heck, I might give that a try, at least the coil. The wires are fairly new, only two years old or so. I ran into a problem, the ditributor is seized in the manifold so I can turn it or break it loose. Time to work some pB Blaster in there to see if I can break her loose.

[buffs 78 ford]

I have yet to see a 400 with a dizzy not frozen

[JfB_93]

Good luck I tried PB Blaster in both my old 79 f150 (460) and 86 f250 (460) both distributor's stuck, wound up having to break the top off of both of em' and taking a pair of tongue and groove pliers to the base of them and twisting them out.

[Johnny]

I've found a small pry bar works well... just take your time and don't bind it as your forcing it out, and you wont break it.... I've done it a bunch of times over the years

[redmt79]

Sounds like bad plug wires all the way around.

[OneTuffHonky]

And RedMT hit it on the nose. Got in there, found a couple of small miscelaneous vaccum leaks (Looks like a cat had been taking up residence in the engine bay.) fixed those and still had the same problem. Decided to do a tune up on her and the plugs all looked good, the cap and rotor werent bad so I replaced them, bought a new set of wires and now she runs like a champ. Still didnt get the distributor loose, maybe that will be my project for next weekend. Had a fella tell me to heat and cool the distributor and work on breaking it loos and also he said he made his own concauction of wd40 and something like a mag wheel cleaner and one other thing that he says will help break the distributor loose. Either the guy just got lucky with that mixed drink or I had one too many beeers to fully pay attention to what he was talking about lol