truck won't start

well a week ago or so i changed from my buddies carb to my old one (which is crap) but we tuned the carb and distributer and i drove it home but now it won't start, it is at TDC and the rotor is pointing the right direction, all the plug wires are where they are supposed to be, but it still won't start( my buddy has been telling me for a long time that the vacuum advance on the distr. is not working but that should not affect it, but do you think the whole distr. went bad, when we put my old carb on it we had to trun the timming down so i figured maybe i had to turn it back up to get it to start cold, but no matter how i turn the distr. it will not spark

points dist? if so clean them and remove condensor, if it starts get a new condensor.

If this buggy has points/condensor make sure they in right and you have the right gap. Also, did you overlube the dist. cam or not lube it? A worn cam follower or grease can be your enemy. One more check, the ballast resistor on the firewall. If it is burned out, there will be no spark.

it is a HEI distributer all the terminals are clean, i have been driving the truck now for a while with no problems like this until now

the #6 plug wire did get burnt on the headers, but even then it should still start, it would just missfire, right

well i got it started finally, had to turn the stupid distr., it is wierd all i did was change the carb and the timming is completely off, i tried to tell my dad that it is the carb and the distr. causing the problems, but he seems to have this idea that if it works then theres no need to fix it even when it works like crap, but he seems to have that with everything, so he dosn't think there is anything wrong with the carb or the distr.

maybe have the carb rebuilt.... sounds like your timing was too retarded and thats why you were able to start it before but then it cooled down and it was too retarded to crank

it was, so we had to move the plugs over, from where they are supposed to be

try changing the ignition module inside the dist, and make sure that the rotor is clean.(no carbon build up) the other thing that can give you a bad time is the coil pick-up (also inside the dist). last check the coil screws that hold down the coil and make sure that they are not to long and going through the cap.shorting every other cyl'd good luck