Hi guys, I need some help. Have a restored 1964 F100 with a totally rebuilt 292 and an electric Holley carb. The engine cranks when I go to start it but nothing fires up. I have already replaced the fuel filter, battery, and the spark plugs are only about 10 months old. Anything else you'd recommend I inspect?

 

An old but good test is to pull one spark plug and connect the wire back up to it - then wearing a heavy leather glove have someone crank the engine while holding the tip of the spark plug on the engine block metal. If there is no spark or a weak spark then it's likely either not got a good ground from engine to battery path or something not working well in the ignition system. If no spark is present a next good check I do is to hook up my timing light and see if the timing is in the ball park. If there is a weak spark then I'd check the low and high voltage circuits of the coil using my ohmmeter. This is a static check with no voltage applied to the coil. If coil checks out good with static tests then I'd check the input cranking voltage to the coil looking for a nominal 12 volts. Then work my way back to the distributor and check the points gap and condition of the rotor and cap, always suspecting the condensor if everything else checks out good. Could be as simple as a mice chewing through a wire or something might have gone bad.

If a good spark and timing looks correct then I'd start looking at fuel delivery.

 

I'm guessing you mean holley electric fuel pump. Pull the air cleaner, look down the carb, work the linkage by hand to see If the accelerator pump is squirting fuel. NO= trouble shoot the fuel system. YES= move on to the ignition system. Pull a plug wire stick a spark plug in it set it on the engine someplace where you can see it. Crank the engine and see if you have spark, nice bright blue would be good. Let us know what you find out.

 

Here are a few good items to have in your arsenal for trouble shooting no start situations. First one is a inline spark tester that cost about $9.00 from Amazon. The second one is a remote starter switch for about $16 on Amazon also.

With the inline spark tester you pull one of the spark plug boots off then plug it into the spark plug then plug in the old boot to the end. Then hook up the remote starter switch by clipping on one clip to the positive terminal of battery and the other clip to the "S" terminal on the solenoid. Now when you pull the trigger the engine will fire over and if you have spark the light will come on in the inline spark tester. If you do not have spark work backwards to the coil then the distributor. If you find you have spark then next is fuel.