Need help starting a 304

B

BeefMcGuns

New member
Greetings,

I’m really stumped and am hopeful one you will help me solve the riddle of “why will my Scout II not start?”.

I recently pulled the 304 out of my ’72 Scout. While out, I put in an rv cam, refreshed the cylinder heads by de-carboning the valves and put it all back together with new gaskets, springs, and retainers. I put it into my Scout and have spent about 15 hours to get it to start. It will sputter a bit and then will not continue.

Details:
• 304 v8
• I rebuilt the edelbrock 1405 carb; can see gas squirt
• put on new aluminum manifold
• new gaskets all the way around
• old distributor with points. No electronic ignition or gold box
• no smog
• rv cam installed with the two dots directly over each other
• verified I have cylinder 8 on tdc
• new cap, rotor, wires, coil, and plugs
• blue spark on tested plugs
• plugs came out “wet” with gas
• verified the spark plug wires go to the right cylinders
• motor cranks easily and has compression
• no metallic noises coming from engine
• engine was sufficiently primed before attempting to start
• I have good grounds
• have voltage on both sides of the coil, etc
• with cylinder 8 at tdc, distributor’s rotor is pointed at #8 sparkplug wire

what I observe:
• it will crank, sputter a bit like it’s trying to start, but then stops sputttering
• I can see gas going into the carb
• priming the carb does not help
• no obstructions to air that I can see

I’m at a loss and am scratching my head. Any suggestions?

Thank you.
 
Wet plugs = flooded. Once it sputters and tries to start it sucks in more fuel and dies. You can try pulling the plugs and cranking it for a bit with them out to clear a bit of fuel from the system.
 
Crank it with the throttle cracked a bit and the choke off or open.. Prime it a tad after 1/2 hour sitting...

No luck? Verify that you have the correct tdc on #8. Needs to be on the compression stroke not the intake... Easy to change and get wrong if you don't verify that with the plug out the compression will blow out when rotating by hand...
Remove the plugs (all) and rotate the engine by hand with a finger in the #8 plug hole until you feel the air wanting to push on the tip of your finger.. After that continue turning the engine by hand till the 0 timing Mark lines up and re order the wires on the cap with 8 where the rotor lines up..
 
Hi, just wanted to close the loop on this. I got it started!

Thanks for the advice. I did a bunch of things and one or more of them worked. Here is what I did to get it to start.

1. Pulled plug 8. Grounded it and confirmed spark. Put finger over spark plug hole and turned over motor until compression started. Checked distributor and it was correct and pointing to 8. I lined up the timing marks at 0.
2. Pulled the other 7 spark plugs and confirmed spark.
3. Cleaned up all 8 spark plugs and got the sparky parts shiny with fine sand paper.
4. Re-gapped them all.
5. Reinstalled them and confirmed wiring was correct.
6. Took off the top part of edelbrock carb and checked my refurb work.
7. High float gap was fine at 7/16 inch on the dot.
8. Low float gap was 1/25 when it is supposed to be 15/16 inch; fixed that.
9. Reinstalled top part of carb and connected everything up.
10. Tried to start it, it would stutter a bit better but nothing. Moved the distributor clockwise and counterclockwise to no avail.
10. Put battery charger on battery for 90 minutes until it said the battery was charged.
11. Put distributor back to "should be good here" Mark.
12. Opened throttle about .25 of the way and tried to start it; it fired right up.
13. Ran at 2,000 rpms for about 3 minutes.
14. Can start and stop it reliably now.

Again, thank you. Not sure who was right but my Scout is again alive!
 
With a new cam there's a very important break in procedure you need to follow.

3 minutes @ 2k rpm isn't long enough. I didn't see where you mention installing new lifters either? Might have missed that. Typical recommendation is 20-30 minutes. I would imagine your cam came with instructions.

Glad you got it up and running.


Jason
 
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