Starting issue, maybe ballast resistor related?

[chaps70rt]

If you want to eliminate the possibility of a wiring issue, there is always replace the engine harness and start with new wiring!   After years of
intermittent shorts in my dash, I finally replaced the dash harness.   The silly thing is that I had already replaced the engine and headlight harness and taillight harness during my restoration.   Now all harnesses are new ..... vs. 50 years old.  No more bad solder joints, loose or broken hidden connectors, etc ....

Peace of mind if nothing else.

[JH27N0B]

I've thought of changing the wiring harness.  One concern I've had though is determining what harness is correct.
The setup is modified with the lean burn removed.  Was a different engine harness used with that modification and if so, which one?
A week or so back I went out and played with the ground of the orange box ECU, scraped more paint off by a mounting bolt and so on.  I then packed up and hopped in to go to a local cruise night.  It fired right up, and when I went to head back home later it fired on the first turn of the key. Pulling into the garage the car stalled, probably largely due to the crappy winter gas still in it from November boiling after the car sat idling for 5 minutes while I retrieved and reinstalled the T tops.  But it fired up instantly when I turned the key to restart,and I tucked it back in my garage and haven't had a chance to take it out since.
Was it as simple as a bad ground?  I don't want to get too optimistic as I've already had a bunch of false hopes on this issue that ended up not fixing it. But a few more trips should give evidence if the ECU grounding was the problem.  First thing I'd done was replace the ECU last year, so if ground was the problem the old one and the new one I installed were not well grounded.

[JH27N0B]

Just a follow up on this.
Last fall shortly before I put the car away for winter, a local buddy of mine helped me put a new reluctor and pickup in the distributor.
Ever since then the car has started promptly.  I don't want to curse myself by proclaiming it fixed, but I've been taking it to a bunch of cruises and a show, starting in May, and it has yet to act up this year so I'm optimistic!