After driving for about 2 minutes today the engine just completely stopped running and it will not restart. There is fuel in the float bowl so at first I thought it was not a fuel problem but am beginning to think this may not be the case.

Truck is '87 22r carbed. Just replaced air filter and fuel pump about a month ago. What would cause it to just quit like that?

Has it been rattling at startup before this?

Quick-n-dirty check- pull the distributor cap off; crank engine. If the rotor doesn't turn, you've lost your timing chain.

Check your fuses and do a good visual inspection to see if anything is amiss.

Ignition took a dump gets my vote. I had a Jacobs unit die on me twice, now I'm back to a stock ignition.

That's what I was thinking... I sure hope it's not the timing chain!

How do you trouble shoot the ignition to find the faulty component?

Go to the FSM sticky here and follow the instructions for the online library and login. To rule out the TC will take you all of 5 minutes.

Given that I can crank the engine all I want without any strange noises or other catastrophic failures, I'm pretty sure the timing chain is ok. But I will take your advice and double check.. Thanks for the help.

How do you eliminate various parts of the ignition system? I'm a bit weary of touching the coil and what not because of the high voltages.

Pull a spark plug and set it against the block with the wire connected to it and have someone crank the engine while you look to see if it's sparking. If not, check to ensure you have your 12v going to the coil pack and check the pickup from the distributor to make sure it's sending the signal to the coil pack to fire.

Pulled the dirstibutor and did the timing chain check and it is okay, but the distributor cap and rotor looked pretty worn so I went ahead and replaced them. I hooked up a timing light to the #1 plug wire and got no flashing so I'm pretty sure it is a spark issue. Thanks for the advice Buck, I'll take a look at the wire from the distributor tomorrow.

Is it possible that the governer could have failed causing the enging to stall? I was trying to figure out what all of the wires do that are connected to the coil and they seem to come from 3 different places.

Well.... I checked everything as per the FSM and the coil, ignitor, wires all check out okay. Power is there, fuses are good, all connections are free of corrosion, but still.... no spark. Anyone have any other ideas? How do you test the distributor sensor on the distributor? Thanks for anything

Unplug the wire going from the coil to the distributor and see if it sparks when you crank the engine over..