Primer to start the engine?

[AndyIlles]

A-dude et al....

Jimbilly has a good point.  If there's ANY way air can get sucked into the fuel line, it'll drive you nuts, so definitely replace all rubber connector hoses as well as inline filters.  

The mechanical engine pump has 2 little caged, spring-loaded fiber discs, one facing each direction, that act as one-way valves.  The smallest particle can keep them for sealing.  Easy way to check your fuel pump is to take both fuel lines off the pump and try blowing through the pump with a piece of hose.  You should be able to easily blow through one way, and not at ALL the other way.  If you can blow both ways, you have a bad pump.  The pump works through a cam-actuated lever that moves a diaphragm... that can also be leaky and would additionally allow raw gas to enter the crankcase as well.

If you hook up an electric pump, I'd mount it right at the tank, wire it through the ignition switch, and would definitely bypass the mechanical pump (on account of the leaky diaphragm possibility).

Another possibility that's been overlooked is the opposite of fuel starvation.  If your carb has a bad float needle-valve/seat, the engine can flood and cause hard starting.  If it will start while holding the gas pedal to the floor (without any pumping), that's it.  It's worth a try.

Good luck
Andy  - HungarianDude@AOL.com  561-317-2282

[aliendude]

I've thought about bypassing the stock pump - just because of the
leaking fuel possibility into the case.....

I usually sniff the dipstick to check....whenever I check the oil.

I probably modify this later/soon.  

I've got it working now,  I had to replace my fuel tank ( cracked )
and the fuel line at the back was really soft....  

If you ever have to replace your tank,  the 36 gallon tank, and the
50 Gallon tank use different straps.     Looks like they would be the
same, but the forwards backwards bands are different.   The cross
band was the same....   wierd.....

I have to crawl back in there and redo my guage lines anyway, and
the ground for the sender......so I'll bond in the ground wire for a
pump when I do it later...

[Rodney]

Me to!! 79 440 clipper with hard start. the big fix for me so far was to replace the thermo quad which was leaking fuel from the float bowl right in the crank case. this is an inhearent problem with these carbs. if you can change it for and edelbrock or holley do it. I went with a 780 vac 2nd. this fixed my hard starting problem but I do plan on installing an electric pump with larger fuel lines up to the engine.
one thing to take into consideration when installing an electic fuel pump is to have it wired so it shuts off with the ignition so it is not accedently left on!!! this is a fire or at the least a fuel leak looking to happen at some time unless all of the fuel fittings are AN and the fuel line is steel or steel braided. with NO rubber at all. and one should also install a fuel regulater in front of the electric pump to have a steady 3-6 lbs of fuel pressue at the carb.
one thing that also might we worth looking into is an thermo spacer between the carb and intake. to keep the heat from the engine from boiling the fuel in the carb bowel. the spacers are about an inch and will also give a little more bottom end touqe on a 440. on the 440 engine there should be a peice of insulation between the valley tray and intake to ward off some of the heat to the intake. i have never seen anyone replace this when they pull ed the intake off but might be a good idea on these homes. once the engine is shut off, the heat in the dog house has no place to go so it just cooks everything under it. I plan on installing an electic cooling fan in front of the radiator to run after the engine is shut off. this worked great on my race car and when wired with a thermo switch to shut  if off when the temp reaches 160 or so this works great.
to take it a step further an electric coolant pump to curculate the coolant would be best but kind of spendy.