Thread: 350 won't start

Tweet

I will try to explain this the best I can. Sorry if its long but i want to be thorough.

I have an 87 Chevy Short bed pick up with a 350(not original engine). Has been switched to carburetor (quadrajet). pretty much stock other than that. It was running great until the other day. It started acting up when i would first start it to warm it up (its been below 30 degrees here lately). It was acting like maybe the choke was sticking but it would come out of it when you got moving. A couple days later it did the same thing but it did not stop while driving. The next day it was worse, then it died and would not restart.
I smelled gas so i thought the choke was stuck. Turned out it had a cracked fuel hose. I changed the hose but the truck wouldn't start back up or fire at all really. Pulled the number one plug and it didn't have a good spark, also it was pretty black (carbon or suit i think, not oil). I have since changed the ignition module, cap, rotor, coil, and still no good spark (seemed yellow and possibly intermittent but its hard to tell without working alone).
I'm not sure what to do next. Could it really be that all the plugs are so bad that the thing won't start? Is the distributor bad maybe? It will kind of give a little sputter if you crank it over and over but no real firing. It was running great til the other day. The distributor hasn't been moved so the timing should be good. Any suggestions are welcome and any help is greatly appreciated. I need to get this thing back on the road. Thanks

This is just a thought. Ground on the coil? I would change the plugs. They could be fouled. Been there before.

i think the coil ground is good, I scraped off some paint where the ground attaches before I put the screw in. I guess I will go with the plugs next. thanks

It could be a number of things, but the last quadrajet I had, I took
it off and thru it into a dumpster....Have run Edlebrocks ever since,
except once. A 1050 dominator I sold was a good carb. I know guys
that run quadrajets with no problems, but to me they are cranky and
I am not a carb expert.

With a volt meter make sure you have 12 volts going into the HEI with the key on.If you don't start backtracking.

Just sounds like too much gas and not enough hot spark..If it were
mine I would dump the quadrajet, go with edlebrock, and go MSD 6al
box with blaster 2 coil, with real good spark plugs and wires....This
may be too expensive for what you have...I think I have a good used
box and coil laying around somewhere, but haven't thought about selling
it.

Wire the coil + up directly to the battery and crank the engine while checking for spark.

i vote carburetor is the problem

I don't believe it. Changed the plugs and it fired right up. They didn't look terrible but I'm not complaining. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

I wrecked a truck one time, front right corner. I few weeks later I tried to start it back up. It wouldn't fire. Maybe acouple of puffs a time or two. I finally put plugs in it and it started right up. Weird.
Maybe for you a carb adjustment is needed. Or you might have to do it again. Cams will also make a difference, but it's usually the carb that needs adjusting.
Glad you got it going.

Yep--those series of vehicles the electronic ign had high voltage but low amps and ANY sort of fowling would keep them from starting--Even the dealers had a hard time with cold weather ops with the 9th injector and the extra fuel fowling