I have a chipper with a 300 6 ford industrial engine. I have rebuilt carb new igntion system new fuel filter clean the inlet of carb out. Yesterday it ran good it will not start on its own just needed a little squirt of ether and it took right off. It reved up and everything sounded good. Today I try to start and it wont start at all. Not even pop off ether. It has spark. I have good battery with charger hitched up. Could it possibly be the intake manifold gasket? Any other ideas?
As simple as this engine is there could be alot of things wrong but the intake gasket would be way at the bottom of the list. It sounds like a fuel problem and one thing to always remember new parts can be bad. Check to see if gas is geting to the carb first.
How's the choke work and have you checked the fuel level in the carb before you crank it? Not sure about the industrial version, but the trucks I had were hard starting in the cold with the electric choke (weak accelerator pump so it was pump the gas for a minute and she'd fire right away, or crank it first and swear later). Or you could dribble a tablespoon of gas down the gullet and see if that starts it as easy as the ether, ether is easier to ignite so if the gas doesn't start it then I'd look back at the ignition.
If it has spark and won't fire on ether makes me think compression issue... Or timing
Look for a ceramic ballast resistor in the ignition system. They are usually about a 2" long piece of white ceramic with 2 terminals on them. Seen it many times with that motor in pickups.
a lot of those Ford industrial engines had a fuel shut-off right on the base of the carb. Look for what looks like a temperature sending unit with a single wire coming out of it somewhere between the carburetor base and the fuel bowl. They act up and do squirly things somethings.
I've found that using starting fluid instead of gasoline when diagnosing a gasoline engine is not generally a good idea
I have this motor in a snowcat. I think the fuel pumps are weak. Even after replacing the pump, it was hard to start. I put an electric fuel pump on it and a 'hot-spark' points replacement and it's pretty good, now. The first turn or two of the motor come hard...don't know why.... and then she's running !