I'm seeing a consensus on the fuel filter, hah. I guess that should be top priority right now, considering how easy it is.

Quote Originally Posted by rspears View Post
Just to clarify and focus on the actual problem, when you said that you've can we assume that when you were out on your drive the 'Bird was running fine, no ignition problems, no missing, but simply ran out of fuel? Just thinking that we can perhaps keep from chasing a bunch of rabbit trails if we know all of the facts up front. BTW, you did an excellent job with the "Preamble", IMO.
I made it to work, and after coming back out to drive home (12hrs later), it wouldn't start. I spent abour half an hour trying to crank. Not constantly, of course. I would crank, feather the gas, etc. I asked the security guards for a cord to plug the battery into, wait 5 min, try again, etc. Then, I went and bought the gas can and filled her up and had a backfire. Call it a transitional period from contemporary cars to classic cars. You learn you can't pull certain shenanigans with old cars, lol.

Quote Originally Posted by jerry clayton View Post
Does your fuel pump have the vacume boost for the windshield wipers?
Does your distributor have vacume AND mech advance?
Is the distributor vacume line hooked to a carb venturi port?

You will need to change all the old rubber lines to new lines compatable with todays fuel
You will probably need to change filters 3 times to get past crap out of system
I forgot about this, but yes, the vaccuum is connected to the wipers. After the backfire, the wipers had trouble getting up, hence why the vaccuum advance is drawing my suspicion so much. I forgot about this and haven't tried the wipers since the rebuild.

I'm not 100% sure about the advance. Is a centrifugal advance the same as a mechanical advance?
"The function of the 1957 distributor differs from the '55 and '56 models in that the 57 model has centrifugal and vacuum advance."

The line was attached at the time of the incident. It's not attached now, but it's part of the process I got for this weekend when I put the carbs back on the manifold.


Thanks for all the replies everyone!