I have a 78 caprice with a 350 and a dbl bbl carb. Everything is stock except the radio. I have had it about a week it ran perfect then last night would not start. It cranked up for a couple seconds then died, after that it will turn over and seems to try to start but will not. I replaced the distrib. Cap and rotor, and had the coil and ignition module checked (both were fine) it STILL will not start. It IS getting fuel as I can smell it and see it squirt with the air cleaner off. Please help!!!
Tied Of Wrenching In The Cold

 

I know you said it's squirting fuel but is it getting enough fuel? It is possible that it is not. Have you changed the fuel filter? If not give that a go. It could be clogged. Also when you crank the car remove the distributor cap & see if the distributor is rotating. It's possible there could be a timing issue. How many miles on it?

 

The car has 17000 miles on it so it has probably been turned over at least once. Today I retrace all the spark plug wires and put them in the correct order(they were pretty jacked, I don't know how it managed to run before) I removed the dist cap and cranked it , it is turning. I have not checked the fuel filter but I did pour a little gas in the carb and even tried some engine start...nothing. If there is a timing issue, how do I diagnose that and fix it?

 

have to take a short break to recharge the batt. It ran down from two days of unsuccessful attempts at starting. Be back in about an hour

 

Put the batt back in and pulled out the three little plugs that plug into the coil. Had a friend turn the ignition while I held a screwdriver to each of the leads on each of the plugs...nothing, no sparks, is that my problem, no power to the coil and how do I fix that? Or does that even matter since the rotor is still turning?

 

YES, spark plugs are DEFINITELY getting a spark. A very BIG, travel up the screwdriver spark! what is an HEI distributor?

 

I do have an HEI distributor, had to find out what that was

 

I'll be honest with you Gary, it was big, and my only thought was to let go of it as quickly as possible I have to head to work now n my helper is gone so I will update with spark color tomorrow. Btw, what is the significance of the spark color and is there a safer way to check that?

 

Well I went ahead and sucked it up and did it again, and in the split second between my pinky going numb and me dropping the screwdriver, the spark looked a whitish yellow. How do I fix, and is this enough to keep the car from firing up?

 

sorry gang, I figured out what it is( with the help of a bud)
...... It's jumping time. I cranked it to get the hash mark on the balancer to zero, then took off the dust cap and the rotor was pointing at a different cylinder every time. So now I'm just looking for a friend with space in their shop, b'cause I can't change a timing chain in my apt parking lot.