Hey all, working on a 95 Ranger with the 3.0. I’m working on this for someone else so don’t have any background info, but they bought it needing head gaskets so I did the head gaskets as well as timing chain cause they wanted it done for preventative maintenance. Got it all done, truck ran great for 3 days. Only thing I didn’t like was when I set the distributor I had to turn it counter clockwise as far as it would physically go basically to hit the 10 BTDC mark, but it got there and ran good so I left it. After about 3 days, the truck sputtered and died on them and wouldn’t restart. I checked the timing when it got back, and it was quite a ways off but the distributor hadn’t physically moved. So I reset the distributor, and this time around I had the same issue of setting it to 10 BTDC but it was barely set on the edge of the mark (I believe the mark was just past the pointer but very close) and the truck started, but ran very poorly, and after a few days of moving it around at their house before I could mess with it more it eventually died and wouldn’t restart again. I checked compression to make sure the timing chain didn’t jump, and also checked fuel pressure and all is good on those fronts. I threw a distributor in it which did relieve the difficulty of setting the timing correctly, so I do think there was something wrong with the old one, but alas it still only fired for a few seconds and ran poorly and died and won’t restart. No codes except for some fuel pump circuit codes because it’s been hot wired to run at all times with the key on. So I’m stumped, because I’ve got good fuel pressure, timing is right, I seem to have spark because my timing light is lighting Altho I haven’t tested each cylinder, clean air filter, not sure what I’m missing. Wondering if I’ve got something crazy like a clogged muffler? The cat has been deleted. Super weak spark? Something else? Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

your tuck has a distributor?
I have had this same problem several times in my 88 years but never on a Ford pickup so the solution I found may not pertain.
It is possible that the distributor points gap is not properly set (which would explain your other problems) If the gap is too close the points never open, so that unless the engine is turning over fast (causing a "hop" on the peak of the points) the gap never opens. It will make it impossible to set the timing, and the engine will not idle fast enough for the gap to open.
I gave away a perfectly good Hudson Commodore because I had not yet learned this. It would die at every stop sign and unless the battery was well charged to spin the engine fast it would not start. I almost took a stick of dynamite to a nice old jaguar that had this problem....that was the car I learned about this on. And I got a beautiful Citroen ID 19 for free because the garage owner (A Citroen dealer!) told me I could have the car if I could drive it off the lot. His certified mechanics had given up on it. Took me 30 min to drive it off the lot.
Also. if the distributor has been turned too far, the top of the condenser might be touching a screw in the side of the distributor, shorting out the points!

 

It is distributor but it doesn’t have points, it has what I think is a magentic pickup inside of it to make it all work. I’ve got the timing set where I want it now, just can’t figure out why it won’t run now