old, west here mate just spotted this one can you run a wire from the positive terminal on your battery to the pos(+) term on your coil please mate and turn it over ,if it starts you need to replace the ballast resistor(white ceramic block with 2 terminals on it usually on the fire wall or coil) if not i would suggest that you have points/condensor trouble some gm/chev trucks had this resistor in the harness,the guys should know as i am uncertain as to which truck you have and some trucks didn't have them,either way this will cover the electrics please don't walk away and leave the jump wire connected as it will flatten your battery.one more thing take the cap off and turn it over and check the rotor is turning if not that is your fault the distributor drive gear is split in two where the roll pin goes through or the cam chain/gear is u/s not common but can happen,we have a local G.M.H.(General Motors Holden)engine down here that uses of the shelf bits from G.M.that had a steel crank gear and a fibre cam gear (to quiten them down) that would drive fine and if the timing was out at all much it would give a cough when shut down and strip the fibre gear the next time you go to start it it wont go just give a cough as you described,same thing with the distributor drive gear.Hope this helps,also hope it is just electrics,mate i'm off to bed(2.10am) here but please don't hesitate to get in touch if you think i can help.I don't know these trucks to well being an Aussie but it is all common stuff for a truck built in the last 70 years Good Luck and don't let it get you down it was built by hand it can be fixed by hand. p.s just in case it helps i am an Auto Electrician
