Tried To Start The Car After Valve Job - No, Of Course It Won't Start

. . . so . . . I have everything ready to try to start the engine . . . or so I think . . . and . . . I put in the battery & get my wife standing by with the fire extinguisher (no kidding) . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . more nothing then I smell gas . . . so I stop . . .


. . . I go down to the auto parts store & the guy there said it's either the ignition or valve timing that's probably off . . . he also said it's really bad to have gas in the cylinders because it'll leak down past the rings and ruin all the bearings in the crankcase . . . oh great . . .

. . . I come home & look down inside my carb & find a pool of gasoline in the bottom of the carb . . .

. . . I feel so stupid . . . have I just ruined my car? Is it possible to fix this?

How?

2 main things with engine must me dealt with.

#1.) position of distribter

#2.) position of cam/crank marks



Take the plugs back out and turn engine over with a rachet in proper direction with finger inside #1 plug hole. When it starts compression now line up crank/cam marks to tdc. Now look at position of rotor. It should be pointing at #1 terminal on distribter cap.

All this must be aligned or it will not start.

Usually the valve job won't cause the car to not start at all, you must have disconnected/accidentally moved something else in the process

Check that the ignition coil is still connected properly and to the distributor, also check your fuses, you may have shorted soemthing in the process and burned a vital fuse.

if it's really flooded, turn the float screw in and have someone crank the car, once it starts up begin to take the float back to where it was. I'm guessing it just got flooded while you were messing with the throttle cable, that or someone was playing wwith your pedals, got any kids?

also make sure the ground cable is connected to the valve cover and to the body. Some cars run weird if this isn't hooked up.

try that, let us know. If it's been a while since the carb was flooded it should be mostly evaporated by now, give it another shot starting it up without messing with the screws first.

Just make sure you change your oil right after you get it started and don't worry much about the gas. People run cars with blown headgaskets and the same thing happens with coolant and rarely are their engines blown.

Did you lube the parts prior to assembly?