Im trying to get my buddys car going. Its a 305 carb. We put in a new batt., car, rotor, plugs and wires. We can get it to start and run if you give it a little throttle. It dies at idle. It ran fine when he parked it. Im thinking fuel pump or filter. The sparks there, maybe its not getting enough fuel or the mixture is off. But it ran when parked and nothing was touched. What could have gone bad. We tried to start it when the tank was empty. Maybe the filter clogged? Any suggestioons would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Here's something I would forget lol ... Did you refill the tank?

 

Did you remeber to drain the gas or at least put Sta-bil in it? If not the gas is probably bad. Drain and replace.

 

Hulk,

It sounds like you suspect a fuel delivery problem. Have you tried to prime the carb with fuel? You can pour a little fresh fuel in the carb to get it started if fuel delivery is your problem.

If there is no fuel in the carb bowl, there will be no jets of fuel from the accelerator pump when the throttle is opened. Check that, too.

Remove the fuel line and crank the engine several revs while holding the line in a suitable container. You should see good solid pulses of fuel every time the engine rotates. And as long as the line is off, you might as well remove the filter and inspect it. If the pump is working and the filter is clean, the fuel bowl should eventually fill. If the float is stuck, you can lightly tap on the carb upper body with a hammer handle of other piece of soft wood to free the float.

If there is fresh fuel in the intake and the engine cranks but doesn't fire, start looking at the ignition.

 

Well the tank was empty at first. When we realized we went and got gas and treatment to maybe clean thge system a little. The car starts no problem, we jumped that hurdle. We just cant get it to stay running unless you give it gas. Im going to check the pump tomorrow. Spark should be fine, we rplaced everything but the coil. No nothing was put in the tank when stored, I think a little left over gas just evaporated.

 

Hulk,

As long as it has started, scratch the idea of the ignition. If the fuel in the bowl had evaporated, it likely left behind all sorts of deposits. The zinc (die cast) in the bowl may have also started turning back to powder, so some of that may be restricting the idle fuel bleeders and wells. As long as you are calling it a night, you may want to consider filling the bowl (via the bowl vent) with some naptha-based solvent (like charcoal lighter fluid) to help clean up those dried-on deposits. You may get lucky and not have to pull the carb for cleaning.