Hi All,

I'm new to this forum as well as new to Ford!

I just purchased a 1990 F150 with a 5.0 and 5 speed manual. The person I bought the truck from said that he recently replaced the thermostat and had to remove the distributor cap; therefore, he didn't get the cap back on just right. This is all his claim, hopefully he wasn't lying.

Anyway, I noticed when the truck reaches around 55MPH-60MPH it begins to ping quite a bit. The idle is pretty slow as well. When it's cold it barely keeps running. Is there anyway I can figure out if it truly is out of timing and make the fix in my garage or would this be something that requires high-end computer diagnostics?

I'm sure I'll have lot more questions coming shortly.

 

The cap is either on right, or the truck won't run at all.. if a wire is crossed, it would miss fire horribly and no doubt throw a CEL. Without a timing light, it will be hit or miss trying to adjust the timing. Make sure the spout is plugged in correctly first. And it shouldn't cost too much to get the timing set at a shop.

 

Make sure it's EXACTLY like this:



Then read this thread, and this: