hard starting?

[colorado71]

This has been confusing me for a while, a friend of mine has a 68 f100 with a 360/auto. the truck starts hard unless you advance the distributor alot, then retard the timing for it to run properly. the vac advance seems to work properly, possibly a bad distributor? any ideas?
thanks.

[fordman]

without movign the dist is it slow to turn over? or it just wont fire? the timing chain could have something to do with it too.

[colorado71]

very slow to turn over, but will eventually start. new battery and cables. thought about the timing chain as well, the p.o. said the engine was rebuilt about 8k ago. everything looks new and it has great even compression so i tend to believe it. did re use the stock distributor.

[knightfire83]

This during a cold start up or a hot restart?

Starter heat soak due to headers?
Old and binding up starter?
Could be that the vacuum advance is hooked to the wrong port on the carb. It needs ported vacuum not manifold vacuum.

[colorado71]

Thanks for all the info, pulled the distributor and found a couple problems. 1st lots of play in the shaft and 2nd vacuum advance spring not attached. pulled another dist from a junkyard 360 and it runs like a champ!.