350 Chevy running rough, lots of time and effort spent

[thewrai6th]

Alright, I think I fixed the problem. Unfortunately, 3 things changed at once and I'm not sure which one did it, but I have a good idea:

#3, Had to pay a bill downtown, so I drove it on the freeway for about 5 miles. Possibly losensing up some gunk and clearing out the carb, but it ran like crap the whole way until I stopped and idled for a minute, then shut it off. I had already cleaned out the lines and replaced the fuel filter, so this is unlikely the fix.

#2, I reseated the spark plug wires on the cap, after shutting it off. They were all on there pretty well.

#1 probability, I had a manual choke cable that rusted and siezed. I rolled it up and stuck it behind the dash one day, not realizing that the terminals on the back of the instrument cluster are live. My temp gauge started flipping out after the freeway run and I reached my hand under there and felt the choke cable rubbing on the terminals. Started it back up. Now my temp sensor doesn't work, but the truck drives great. Back to normal/full power.

My guess is the really old (possibly original) alternator couldn't produce enough spark with the temp sensor grounded out to do anything but idle. Still, the headlights were working bright, so it's hard to say for certain.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me out with this! Much appreciated!

Time to get back to sanding the new cab