hey everyone.

i have a problem with my car. for some reason it wont start. the starter motor cranks the engine but the engine will not fire. i have no idea what the problem is, theres gas in the tank, the fuel flows into the carb with no problem the spark plugs are sparking, the battery is fully charged and i cant seem to think of what else might be causing my problem. and i'm not sure what would be causing smoke to come out of my carb but i think its just exauhst. but i am no master mechanic i pretty much know the basics of car repair only so if anyone can help me even the slightest bit i would appreciate you help more than you can understand hehe.

another thin is when hold the key to start the car and hold the accelerator it seems to "try" to turn over and has a really slow and rough idle but i have to be holding the gas down almost to the floor for this to happen. when i tried to shift it into drive the engine died.

now i don't know about you guys but i'm extreamly confused. i have asked a few people that know cars better than me about my problem and they suggested that the timing might be off, or the ballast resistor might not be working, or my starter motor is done for (which by the way i took it off to examin the teeth on the starter motor and they seemed ground away but it was still able to turn ver the engine).

anyway theres what i know and what i can tell you so any help would be greatly appreciated i wish i knew what was going on but like i said i'm still kinda of learning about the complexities of an engine.

thanks in advance

mat archer

I had this problem not too long ago, I found that replacing the ballast resistor solve it just fine. The only problem for me was that I found out too late, Because of my lack of knowledge I had been trying to start the car and killed the starter in the process. I hope this helps you out, it sound a lot like what I experienced. Good luck man..

I don't think the ballast resistor would kill the starter, unless the starter died due to prolonged cranking. I'm running mine without the ballast resistor(not stock coil, not stock ignition, don't do this with stock! You will kill the coil).

Anyway...

Question: Is your car an electronic ignition?

I'm not a mechanic but hopefully I can give helpful ideas. Check your distributor cap and the gear inside. The gear inside might be bad. It also seems as though the car may be way out of tune, though that would probably be only a part of it. Maybe time for a rebuilt carb? It seems like it would be something wrong with either the distributor or the carb to me, but like I said, I don't know much about the fully dynamics of the engine either.

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My car may be slow to sixty, but at least it's been reliably slow to sixty for more than thirty years.

Was there anything that lead-up to this problem?

You will want to check the timing, bump the engine around to TDC and see if the rotor is pointed to #1 spark plug wire.
Here are some more timing tips:
http://www.slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic ... ght=static
DD

Sounds like it's flooding when you say it almost runs with the throttle held open. Are the plugs wet or black and sooty? Check your needle and seat, etc, and you'll probably need a new set of plugs if they're badly fouled.