Truck won't start after sitting for years

[agreiner]

OK, so first, thanks for the ideas. For clarification, there is nothing when I plug in the spark tester on the coil wire. Thus, we have nothing going into the distributor. The reason I'm leaning toward the coil is because there have always been issues with ground on this truck. I'm thinking the coil itself may not be bad, just not properly grounded. The reason I removed it is so I could clean it up a bit and test it before re-installing.

 

[agreiner]

Got some news yesterday. First, the bad...I'm about to start a 3 month long project at work which will severely limit my free time. And the good...during the meeting about that project, my wife messaged me and asked me to take today off so we could camp out last night. Of course I jumped all over that opportunity!

This morning, I was able to get everything torn down, and got it all figured out. When I got the dizzy cap off, I found that the clip for the ICM from the pickup coil had literally disintegrated. Took the ICM to Autozone to have it tested, and they couldn't give a definitive answer (it passed about 90% of the time). Figured I'd bite the bullet and grab one, along with new cap and rotor.

Got it all put back together...and nothing. Then I remembered about the broken clip, and took it all beck apart and swapped the wires. Put it all together, and bingo! We have a running truck.

Thanks, everyone, for all the help in solving this mystery. Next up, all new brake lines, hoses, etc.