It never ceases to amaze me....
 

What a simple tune-up can do.

I have been driving my 84 straight six around while I was installing the new 350 in my Silverado. It had been running a little rough but not to bad. A little hesitation on acceleration every once in a while, no big deal. The master cyl. was leaking so the other day I replaced the master cylinder and bled the system and went to start the thing up and wouldn't you know it. No start. Checked all vacuum hoses and replaced a few, plugged egr, did fuel filter, blasted a pint of gas into a mason jar with a couple cranks of the engine (nothing wrong with fuel pump). There was a healthy stream of gas into the carb when I pushed on accelerator pump rod. I thought spark looked a little weak against the frame so I replaced the coil with a good one from another HEI unit I had that I knew was good. Still no go. the cap and rotor were good and I knew I would be wasting money on a new set, Sooo... I did the plugs and wires and it fired right up. I have this uncle who I (used to) call for advice when ever I had some wierd problem that I couldn't figure out and his advice was, more often than not, "give it a tune up".
Some people never learn....:D

Probably fouled the plugs. The 307 that came with my truck had such bad compression that the plugs would foul on a regular basis. The cold weather starts made it even more unbearable.