Still fighting the battle with my truck...
I have spark- when I put a cap of gas into the carb, she came to life for a second.
I have fuel- when I disconnected the fuel line from the carb and connected it to a bottle, it filled the bottle.
I had my son turn it over and step on the pedal, but I didn't see any gas pumping into the carb. Shouldn't there be a small stream that’s visible? That’s what I read on a few other posts.
I'm not quite sure what to try next, maybe a carb rebuild? What do you guys think. Is there anything else I should try? I know that I'm close to having her run again, but I just cant figure it out...

Thanks in advance!

 

The accelerator pump should push fuel into the primary bores when the throttle is pressed. If it doesn't, then there is something that is either prohibiting the fuel from getting into the accelerator pump, or into the carb bowl in general. From the sounds of it, the carb bowl isn't getting any fuel.

What kind of carb is on the truck? Is it the factory Rochester Q-jet? If so, they can be rebuilt for fairly cheap, but the problem you are experiencing may not go away with a simple rebuild. A lot of Q-jets suffer from primary & secondary well plug leaks. I have had success pulling out the lead well plugs, tapping the openings with a bottoming tap, and then installing threaded plugs coated with a fuel safe epoxy to seal things back up tight in the past, but this isn't something that a lot of people can do, especially the first time.

 

Its not a factory Carb, Its an Edelbrock 1406 Performer 600 CFM, It has an electric choke, could that be the problem?

And who knows how long its been on the truck. I've owned it for about 8 years and it was there when I bought it.

 

Have you taken a look at the fuel inlet screen? Maybe it is clogged up. The screen is accessed by removing the fuel inlet fitting.

HERE is a PDF I found on Edelbrock's website that shows what I am talking about. The screen is item #23 (called a strainer in the PDF).

If the screen is clear, then maybe there is some buildup holding the float valves shut.

 

What Kyle said, PLUS...
It sat for a year,, {on the gulf coast?}

Then you couldnt get it to crank/fire. Ign switch or something.

Now you have no fuel.
I read carefully you have fuel to carb fitting.. but none through accel pump.. which COULD be a bad dried out piston seal, but should dribble at least if tried repeatedly.
A cap of gas runs the car and I assume it just dies instead of missing and tryoing to run but failing.
Ergo, I believe the carb bowl has no gas in it.
Thus I believe the needle valve is stuck.
While cranking, rap on the top of the bowl inward from the fuel fitting with a 3/4 " or so wrench. That MAY free it up. Otherwise pull the top of the carb and check it out. Careful to not lose the parts like float pivot and the needle.

You should rebuild it anyway

Good thing about carbs - easy to fix enough to run the engine
BAD thing about carbs - getting them adjusted to run the engine RIGHT.

 

Thats funny, I was just looking at that same pdf. But I won't have thought to check that out. But I pulled it out, and it looked brand new. I put it all back together, and tried to crank it just for fun, and the two barrels (think thats what they're called) were wet from fuel, but the two towards the cab were still dry.

Time to take the kids fishing for a bit, then I'll come back and work on her some more. I was hoping to get her running before I leave was up and I went back to work. But at least I made progress!

 

The front two bores are the primary bores while the back two are the secondaries. It is typical to not see fuel flowing into the secondaries as airflow is needed to pull fuel from the fuel bowls.

What are your primary fuel meter screws set at? Just about every carb I've ever messed with that had primary metering screws will run fairly well with an initial setting of 1.5 turns from fully seated.

 

Yeah, going to rebuild the carb for sure. Besides not working right now, it looks like its seen better days.

And as for the primary fuel meter screws... The passenger side one was set like 4 turns out and I can't remember what the drivers side was. Looks like my friends husband was tinkering with my truck a bit... But I set them back to 1.5 turns from fully seated.

Let me read the manual, then i'll try resetting the fuel floats and take it from there.

Time to charge up the battery and give it another go.

 

I took off the top have of the Carb and adjusted the fuel floats. They were off by a good 1/4 inch. Its hard to see in the pics, but the fuel in bowl didn't look healthy at all, so I took it all out and cleaned the bowls.



Then after the battery was fully charged, I turned the truck over to get some fuel in the bowl. And just for good measure I poured another cap of gas in there. This time instead of just bursting to life and dying right away, she roared for about 4-5 seconds. Responding to the throttle, but then died again.



But here's what she looked like on the inside.



Also the vacuum line that goes to the passenger side port is pretty dry rotted, anyone think that could be the problem?


Now I can get her to run if:

I put a cap of gas into the carb, and as long as I keep my foot on the gas, feathering the pedal. She ran for like a minute, but as I take my foot off the pedal, she quits.

 

Yeah that looks pretty bad. You might have gummed up ports in the carb from the gas just sitting there for so long. You might have to try pouring gas down the throttle body a few more times to get it to stay running or possibly apply the choke some. Hard to tell from your description of what happens.