Ya know when you can't get your car running and you're not sure if it's a fuel or ignition problem, they say 9 times out of 10 it's ignition. I didn't believe it , but they're right. Broke down with the wife in my '68 Chevy Van (350, cam. headers, intake, Q jet) about 10 miles from home at the local Lowes Home Center. The motor would kinda start then die, then run for 5 seconds by pumping the gas, then die. I was sure it was the Q jet (that I rebuilt). So I got a lift and got the wife back home, took the Q jet outa my '72 C3 and brought it down and installed it in the van. Darn thing, same problem. I took the cap of the distributor, point gap looked ok, even made sparks when I turned the engine over. So I figured the coil took a dump. Went back home and took the coil outa the Vette and brought it back and installed it in the Van. Same problem. So it's gotta be the distributor, Went back home and took the distributor off the Vette, brought it back and put it in the Van. Voila! Drove the Van home, ran perfect. Naturally, I blamed the wife, because she didn't want to dirty up her PT cruiser with 8 bags of bark. Well, put the Vette all back together and put some new points in the Van distibutor, set the gap, and figured it should fire right up, I'd set the dwell and be done. Nope, same problem. At that point I gave up, I'll go through the distributor next weekend. At least my faith in carb rebuilding is still intact. But next time CHECK ELECTRICAL FIRST!

 

Glad you got it sorted out, I hate it when my cars break down

 

What's left? The condenser?

 

Either that or the bearings in the distributor may be bad, causing the points uneven or nenexistent gap, dwell to fly all over the place and resulting misfire. Put a pertronix in my '55, never had a problem since.

 

Cool Van!
I need and old van, mmmmm

 

Good bet that you have something grounding out ... check that small wire inside from points through dist housing ... continues out from dist to coil neg. The small wire inside often gets its insulation rubbed off as it lays on the points plate/against inside edge of dist housing ... that plate rotates as vac advance pulls in-out.