Car stalled need advice.

[eunosracr]

Originally Posted by patrickt

I wouldn't check anything other than casually looking for obvious signs of problems, like "syrup trails" from fuel problems around your carb, or lightly jiggling wires going to your coil, distributor, ignition switch, MSD box, etc. while the car is idling -- but don't do anything major. If something is going bad, it will tell you. So, be prepared for when it does. Assuming your car didn't have a bad case of one-time flooding, when the car stalls on you the next time, have what you need to diagnose it in a small satchel behind the seat. And you should actually "practice" this in your garage. Have a little 12v light going to your ignition box so you can see that it's getting 12v. Get used to putting a remote starter switch on the starter solenoid, turn the ignition key on, pull the air cleaner off, put your nose over the carb and sniff, then crank the engine with the remote starter. (Don't crank and sniff at the same time, or a bad backfire will make a bad day even worse.) Pull back the carb linkage and observe your squirter shooting gas. Crank it again. Assuming you're not getting it to at least fire, put your inductive timing light on a plug wire, crank the engine again with the remote starter and pull the trigger on the gun. See if you get a nice constant flashing while cranking. If you don't have a timing light, pull one of the plug wires off and hold it with something at about a quarter inch from the head while you're cranking. Doing all of this will tell you whether it's a fuel problem or a spark problem. Once you know that, then there are only a couple of things it could be, and most are not a big deal. But trying to diagnose a no-start condition when the car is starting and running fine is pretty much a waste of time, unless you can jiggle a wire and make the car stop.

Pretty much what i was thinking. It almost felt like a one-off instance of bad momentary flooding. Good advice on here. Point taken on the "don"t sniff and start at the same time" ! Thanks again !