Did you drain the tank of old fuel? Assuming you did and the fuel pump is working, after that much cranking, you should have a full float bowl. Pull the air cleaner off and look down the throat of the carb. while looking down the throat, manually depress the throttle linkage with your hand and see if you see gas spraying down the venturi.

 

look down the throat of the carb. while looking down the throat, manually depress the throttle linkage with your hand and see if you see gas spraying down the venturi.

Thanks to everyone for ideas.
I was under the impression fuel only flowed into the carb while the engine is turning over or running, so I didn’t eyeball the throat of the carb. I’ll try that.

Also, I did NOT drain the tank, because I’m an idiot, so fuel quality might be an issue. However, I did add two or three gallons of fresh gas to a fairly empty tank (1/4 full? If that much).

Also, I held a plug cable near the block and saw a spark while it turned over, for whatever that’s worth.

So you’re saying I should see some fuel spraying into carb throat when pumping the gas pedal, even if the engine isn’t turning over. I’ll check that first. Thanks!

 

Ok, why did you change everything related to spark? Did you check it for spark? Have you checked to see if the carb is getting fuel? Do some diagnoses and get back to us, we can be much better help if we have more information.

 

Check for spark.
I'd bypass most of the fuel system. Get a 4' length of hose and attach it to the 'In' side of the fuel pump. The other end goes directly into a can of fresh gas sitting on your fender.

 

Sounds like no spark, as others have stated. Check ignition system for spark.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

Your carburetor should have a small amount of fuel, 1/2 a cup or so i'd guess. When you depress the throttle your accelerator pump should squirt fuel into the engine and you should be able to see that stream of fuel.

 

Hahaha
I’m not surprised the vote is split between fuel and spark. Could be either at this point.

I don’t often have time to work on it, but I do today. Will report back.

 

Bad fuel in tank, adding more doesn’t help. Drain fuel. Verify fuel pump pumping, by using remote gas tank hooked to fuel pump. Run fresh gas into carb from remote tank. See if it will start. If not verify spark is good and strong.

 

I've had this problem. I'd say the fuel in the carb has evaporated. I would pump the gas pedal (full strokes) with a half second to a second between strokes. Could take several minutes. Don't over heat the starter. Could try pouring a bit of gas directly into the carb. No fires please! And yes, no fuel pumping unless engine is turning--it's a mechanical fuel pump.

 

Sniff the gas tank. If it smells like paint thinner, you have found your problem.

 

I don't believe in the bad gas theory. My car started right up with 5yr old gas.

If you're by yourself and the carb is totally dry it's hard to spray ether in there and run back and start it in time since most of it doesn't even end up in the intake manifold. Usually you need someone spraying while you're cranking and actuating the throttle a bit to get it going. I'd drop about 1/2 to 1oz of gasoline straight down the carb and see what happens. If nothing then you pretty much know that spark is the issue.

On my old C-Code 289 if it sat for more than a month you could crank it forever and ever, and spray ether in it, and run back and pump the gas and still crank forever and ever- until the battery was dead. But if I poured gas directly down the carb it fired right up and ran fine. Never did bother to trouble shoot that one before yanking it in favor of my current engine. I think the fuel was draining down back through the pump, or evaporating, and the pump just wasn't filling it back up at cranking RPM.

 

Our gas can go bad at different rates. Pure E10 gas and ethanol attracts water due to the ethanol in the mix. Once water has been absorbed, they tell us that this is the perfect environment to grow a bacteria called acetobacter that feeds on the ethanol and produces acetic acid. This acid is very corrosive. So depending on the water content of the fuel, and how much bacteria is in the tank, along with how much fuel is in the tank, the fuel can go bad really quickly. For further reading: E-10 Alive: The corrosive damage ethanol gasoline does to your fuel pump

 

E10 is all we have. Still not buying it as a reason a car won't start. It's probably the case literally only 1% of the time. Only thing people wrongly blame more often is "vapor lock."

 

No, gas with ethanol can sour pretty quickly. I replaced the in tank fuel pump in a suburban.Truck drove for a year then had issue with radiator and was parked. I repaired the radiator and attempted to start it about 8 months after parking it. No fuel to the TBI. I had to drop tank again. New pump still worked, but the rubber hoses on the pump had turned to a big glob of black goo. The fuel ate it up. It was totally acidic. Also, I bought a 69 that had been sitting for more than 4 years, with a brand new tank that had gas. The fuel was so bad, that I chucked the new gas tank and installed a new one. The amount of crud in that tank was unbelievable. This ethanol gas will turn to an orange brown varnish and ruins everything. I now only run non ethanol in my mustangs since they do not get driven daily and are weekend cruisers in cool weather.

 

Yeah, OK. Well I've been using nothing but E10 for 25 years and I've let projects sit a LONG time and haven't had an issue. I had a motorcycle gas tank full of gasoline on my garage shelf for like ten years and I'd just use the petcock to get some out every now and then. Then I put it back on the motorcycle and fired right up. Hell, I let an E85 car sit for a year or so. No issues. I think you need to figure out why your Suburban had so much water in the gas tank.

Sorry, but I like to give out realistic possibilities to help people with their cars, not every hair brained idea on the internet or near one-of-a-kind anecdotal tales. I'm not sure why guys on the internet seem to know more than what the 250 million vehicles NOT having problems with Ethanol fuel tells us.

 

Maybe its the difference in climate, but I know if I dont drain the e10 out of my seasonal equipment I will have to clean the carbs the next season. I try to keep it e free gas in them, but sometimes the one station with e free is closed.

 

well I don’t use E85, it’s offered around here with regular gas...And that has 10% ethanol. We are also now getting non ethanol in more stations. Maybe your gas tank on the shelf was sealed well enough not to allow it to mingle with humidity? Our mustang gas tanks don’t do that, they are vented to atmosphere. We have a lot of humidity where I live...could possibly be an issue you may not have- I don’t know, but I do know that ethanol gas goes to sh*t pretty quickly around here. I guess your experiences are different. We can agree to disagree. No big deal.

we also have winter and summer blends that get offered at different times of the year. M not sure what those differences are, and if that is a factor.

 

Yes, we don't have much humidity here.

But we're way off topic here now. I stand by my statement that the OP's issue has about a 1% chance of being bad gas. Even if it is a higher chance, I think he should try the shot glass of gasoline down the carb before draining up to 16 gallons of (maybe bad) gas out of his tank. Bad gas, fine, good idea, but it's a ways down the list yet. Even if I suspected bad gas, before draining the tank I would set up a secondary fuel system leading to the inlet of the fuel pump. I actually have one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Motion-Pro-08-0032-Auxiliary-Fuel/dp/B000WJ0RCA

Trouble shooting 101:

1) Start with the easiest and/or most likely solution
2) Resist the urge to change multiple things at once just because they seem logical/cheap/easy (it introduces variables, like one of the changes might have a defective part or install error and then you're now trouble shooting that across multiple changes too)

 

true. It is a quick check with gas down the carb. I figured that happened and spark got verified with the ether, and moved on to the old gas Problem. We shall see what the results are hopefully.

 

Well, the FIRST thing I'd probably do is fill the carburetor float bowl, through the bowl vent, with fresh gas. IIRC, you'll have to hold the throttle at WOT to do this to open the vent valve.

 

On an 1100 it’s not so simple to fill the bowl as the vent is horizontal with a a plastic arm sticking in it. Or in my case, blocked off from a mass rebuilder, but I agree to verify spark with getting some gas in the carb!