After 20 years in the field the wagon won't start. I suspect a fuel delivery issue. New oil & filter, new battery, new coil, distributor cap, rotor, points, condensor. Gets great spark now. Rebuilt carb, new fuel filter. The filter is hooked via a 3ft hose to a small juice bottle filled with gas. 1964 Ford Fairlane Ranch Wagon with 260 V8. It'll putter after fuel is added to the bowl, but not for more than a second or so.
Disconnect the fuel line and put a piece of rubber hose on it. Run the hose into a container. Ground the coil wire. Crank the engine by jumping the solenoid and observe fuel flow. Little or none usually indicates bad fuel pump. Rarely, the sock filter in the tank could be clogged.
Disconnect rubber fuel line between frame and fuel pump put a piece of hose from fuel pump to a container with fuel. Then do as Old Fox says if no fuel then bad pump. If you get fuel then between fuel pump and tank is the problem. Could be float adjustment in carb also.
Don't forget the obvious. Make sure there is gas in the tank and your gauge isn't reading incorrectly.
Thank you all for the quick replies! I currently have the fuel line and tank bypassed. At the fuel filter attached to the engine I have a 3ft length of hose feeding into a small container (1 quart?) of fresh gasoline. What is the reasoning for bypassing the ignition switch, grounding the coil and jumping the starter solenoid? I'm getting great spark at the plugs. I'll get some pictures, but there also is a pretty tight bend in the hard fuel line from the pump to the carb. I guess I'll do some more reading about that float too while I'm at it.
You ground the coil wire to prevent points damage during cranking. Take a screwdriver, and tap on the float bowl or float bowls, then try to fire it again. If you don't get it running after that, pull the pump and verify the arm isn't broken and the eccentric bolted to the camshaft isn't loosey-goosey and attempting to fall off.
You want NO sparks jumping around when messing with fuel under the hood, especially when you are pumping it into a container. Jumping the solenoid allows you to turn the engine over by yourself when under the hood. Otherwise, you can have a helper crank it over using the key. Two stories that happened in my shop from mechanic's helpers not grounding the coil. 1. We were changing a carburetor and waiting for parts. Carburetor was off the car. Helper went outside to pull it into the shop. It was a Ford. The car actually started from the gas squirting into the manifold and he made it about 10 feet before it burst into flames. 2. Helper was clearing a severely flooded transverse Toyota engine. He turned to the key to spin it over and the gas in the cylinders shot out and sprayed the shelf with all my motor manuals on it. The spark from the loose plug wires ignited it all and set everything on fire. Luckily neither incident resulted in any damage to the vehicles but it did burn up several of my manuals. I always kept a CO2 extinguisher handy for such things and it put the Ford out. However, he grabbed the chemical extinguisher for the Toyota and we ended up with that crappy yellow powder all over everything. What a nightmare to clean that crap up.
Oh wow. I guess it just goes to show how simple a carburetor is when it can be bypassed entirely (sort of). In this scenario the gas pedal would truly do nothing. Makes sense. Ground the coil. Got it. Thanks for the suggestions! Now I just need some more hose and another container.
Dude, I've been in the same boat (minus the burned manuals). Back in the early '00s, near the shop I worked at, two different shops totally went up in smoke (three if you count a house that a moron burned down when he set his Caddy, then his garage, on fire) because of mishandling engines and gasoline.
That post went in the wrong direction! I was supposed to write that I had a Bronco ignite from a fuel leak after reinstalling the carb because I forgot the hose clamp. I didn't check my work before I started it. And my co-worker started a Blazer that caught fire the same as your Ford (apt name) because he knew it was getting a carb rebuild but didn't ask if the carb was still installed, and I assumed no one would try to move it, so I didn't put a tag on the steering wheel.
