Originally Posted by Michael C Henry

Not much is going to happen until there is some gas in the carbruetor . That is the problem with mechanical fuel pumps. You have to crank the whole engine over to operate the fuel pump. I have an electric fuel pump. I turn on the fuel pump and wait for the sound of the running pump to change indicating that the carb is full and the floats have stopped the flow into the carbs brfore ever trying to crank the engine over. I to have no chockes . When I forget to turn on the fuel pump switch it is useles to try to start tyhe engine when cold. My problem is after the car has been running is it may restart on the gasoline in the carb but will die soon and I panic then realizing I had that switch turned off. fuel pumps(2) are powered off the ignition switch but has to come through a switchs (2) on dash ( with indicator lights on dash). I once had to make a trip of about 30 miles to help my wife, all because she had turned off the electric both fuel pump switchs. I used to have a time leaving the master switch on ,the heat would rise in the radiator and turn on the electric fans and run the batteries down . If I would turn everything off for a few minutes the batteries would gain enough to rattle the electric fuel pump and fill the carbs. At that point any incline at all and I could roll the car pop the clutch and off we'd go. But try has I have, it still needs gasoline in the carbs to get anything to happen.
My car also has no choke . I have dual fours with no chocke towers at all. Cold weather starting is hard. Warm up is dellicate. Too much throttle before the engine oil is warm will shear the distributor drive gear pin. Then the fire goes out. No damage to engine but have to and remove the distributor to repair. Takes about an hour.