Yet another round of optimism ground into the dust.

I installed the distributor, verified TDC with the valve cover off, set the crankshaft to 5º BTC, installed #1 plug wire in the cap to correspond to the rotor position, and installed the other wires according to the firing order on the valve cover, CCW. Oddly enough, the wires were arranged to fire CW.

Anyway, all that resulted was either hard cranking or loud backfires. It seems I absolutely cannot make this truck run.

I quit while I was ahead because I'm all out of spare valve covers.

I'm going to get a compression tester from O'Reilly's, do a compression test, and if that comes out ok, offer to trade it back to Harry for the money I owe on the IH. He just finished his Terra, so he needs something to busy the hands.

If that compression test is bad (Harry suggested it because he thinks that grenade backfire last fall holed a piston), I'll see if he'll take it plus cash. Either way, I'm done with it: I simply don't have the time to continually vaporize with one disappointment after the other trying to figure out how to make this truck of some use. It's like getting back together with the worst girlfriend I ever had.