Hey guys, I need some help please. This is going to be a rather winded post, so please bear with me.

I have a newly acquired '66 Econoline with a 240. I've just replaced the carburetor (holley 1940 with manual choke) with another Holley 1940 only this one has a hot air choke. I suspect this engine was changed because I'm finding an awful lot of '68 - '69 Ford part numbers on it. The exhaust manifold already had a hole in it for the choke tube so I was good to go with the swap.

It was running poorly, the old throttle shaft was leaking gas all over the manifold and every gasket was wet. During the swap, I found quite a few huge vacuum leaks. I'm surprised this thing ever ran at all.

On top of the carb, here's what I've done:

New plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, points and condensor. I set the points correctly. The van has a new fuel pump (correct fuel pump with filter housing), new vacuum line from the dizzy to the carb.

I did things is stages.

First, I changed out the carb. It cranked until the float bowl filled and fired. I adjusted the idle/air and idle speed screws and she purred like a kitten.

Hell, the choke even worked and flew open once it heated up. I was tickled to death. I took it for a run around the block and she had great power, no dead spots, I was shocked because it drove like a new van considering I replaced the clutch last week and really hadn't driven it much since.

Before I called it a night, I figured I should let it cool down and adjust the choke because it took just a bit longer to fire up than I thought was necessary. So, several hours later, I went back out to the shop. I adjusted the choke. I turned it lean and rich to make sure the rebuild monkeys had hooked the spring up correctly. It all looked good, so I set it to 1 click toward rich. Checked it using the old "drill bit" method and went to bed.

Then, the next morning, I went out to the shop, gapped my plugs and proceeded to install the tune up parts.

I finished everything and went to start it and nothing. Just cranks then acts like the battery is getting low then picks back up.

I took everything back apart, rechecked my choke setting, rechecked my point gap, made sure I didn't bone the firing order, then pulled the plugs and noticed that my new plugs were fuel fouled. AH-HA! Choke issue.

So, I replaced the plugs with new ones and looked at the choke again. Reset the choke to about where it was from when the rebuilders set it, tried again... Nothing. I pulled #1 plug and got bit verifying that I have bright blue fire.

What am I doing wrong? I know I've got to be missing something. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

1 pull gas line make sure fuel pump pump working and filter not plugged.
2 make sure choke is closing ALL the way mine won't start unless the choke is ALL the way closed
3 see if it now will start
4 if it still won't start check spark again I have had allot of problem with coil the last couple of years
5 will it start with starter fluid

 

Thanks OGB!

It turned out that the distributor was so far out that the previous owner had put the wires on wrong to get it to run.

Luckily, I numbered everything before I took it all apart.

I thought maybe I had received the wrong cap at the parts store. I thought maybe the indexing tab was in the wrong place.

When I went back and looked at the cap I took off. I had marked #4 on the cap where the cap says #1 was supposed to be. Every plug wire was exactly one cylinder off.

When I did the tune up I hooked everything up according to the numbers made into the cap, which in a world without previous owners who fancy themselves mechanics, would be right.

I went out to the van, put things right and she fired right up.

The moral of this story... Always mark things for future reference and never throw anything away.