I just re read this and realized that this all happened after swapping to a new style distributor. That is where you need to look.

RE gapping the points, new points can be gapped reliably. If they are used, a dwell meter should be used. If setting the points properly does not fix it, you should examine the distributor for excess play or wear, even if it's a freshly remanufactured unit. It will not be the first time that I've heard of a reman unit being out of spec and causing problems.

 

I recheck, regapped, replaced the points. While I was there I checked out side to side and up down movement of dist shaft, it's nice and tight, doesn't give me any reason to be concerned about that.

It will now start, but it does not matter where I put the timing, it will only run for 30 seconds or so and die. When I restart it and try and throttle into it, it just dies right away, no backfire, just dies.

Pulled the carb looking for vacuum leaks, intake manifold is saturated with fuel. One baseplate gasket is questionalbe so will be making new one in the morning (local parts guy doesn't have one).

More info on the engine, it's original for the truck, has never been apart, just regular maint over the years. Miles are around 90k.

 

It runs!!

I had a combination a things causing my troubles.

I had a bad baseplate gasket under the carb, I finally sprung for the expensive set of points and condensor, and I found a fuel filter prior to the fuel pump that was half plugged and would allow fuel under low load only.

It started almost instantly, timed to 8 btdc intial with ported vac to dist and at 3200 rpm have a total of 30 degrees advance. It seems to pull great (empty truck) and idles awesome.

Thanks for all the helpful advice, I hope to be able to help someone else out in the future as you guys have helped me out.

Thank You!!!

 

Fantastic great job.

 

Yee-Haw! I love it when a plan comes together!!