Points or HEI?

[HEI451]

Or, an intake valve not completely closing. Do y9ou know if anyone has done a "valve grind" recently?

Is thins a street driven engine? If YES, LEAVE THE VACUUM ADVANCE ON THE THING, and, the type HEI you must use, also has a vacuum advance fitted to it.

[fleetsidelarry]

what HEI451 and TopFuel just said, which is why I mentioned earlier that chasing a timing and/or fuel problem was assuming that the cam and valvetrain were OK.

sometimes finding a problem is easy, sometimes not, especially with something that hasn't run in a while. you really ought to do a compression check (it's easier to do than removing and cleaning a gas tank)

Originally Posted by dtkarst

Did all the timing nonsense

It's not clear what all you did

could you clarify the procedure you went thru to check your timing? I'm not trying to insult, I just don't know, and it could be important (especially if you don't know what all the PO did)

did you verify that the #1 piston was on the compression stroke when the timing ball on the flywheel was lining up? if you didn't already know, the timing mark can line up two times in one complete firing cycle. one of these times the mark indicates firing on #1, the other is 180° off.

it is not uncommon for someone to get this wrong, so if the PO did have the distributor out, he could have put it back 180 out.

if you didn't already check this, it needs to be verified

[dtkarst]

Well I hauled it over to the guy that does all of our engine work, and rebuilt my brother 230 in his 63. and he checked the points we checked the fuel pump and it was still pumping plenty of fuel, changed the coil out which helped with more spark and he tinkered with it for a few hours while i was on a job. I went back over and he said that what i need to do is get a gas tank cleaned out completely or get a new one, get a new sending unit, take the line off the carb and put a hose on it and let it pump out all the old gas and then blow the lines out install the new tank and sender, and fill it with about 10 gallons of gas. All the gas that came out of it was awful. when we spray fuel in the carb while cranking it comes very close to starting but it just smells like old gas. So ill try that. This motor has never been apart in its life which is porbably my problem but im giving it a shot..the truck isnt worth rebuilding the motor haha