My 78 Ford LTD won't start

400cid engine, car was running fine until my dad decided to mess with it.

When I pour gas down the carb it will fire up for a split second, and then the carb pops and spits and the engine turns off.

Any ideas on what could be the problem and how to fix it? Thanks in advance.

Well, I just checked and cleaned all the spark plugs and now instead of popping the carb just spits fire. :tongue: So, progress I guess..?

What did your dad do to it? It sounds like its out of time if its backfiring out the intake.

What did your dad do to it? It sounds like its out of time if its backfiring out the intake.

He took out the radiator and disconnected a bunch of vacuum lines in the process and forgot where they went. I put them back on with the help of a diagram I found online but I really can't read those things so I'm not 100% sure they're on right. He also tried to start it with one of the gas lines disconnected and a bunch of gas spilled on the distributor and something popped - I looked it over though and didn't see any damage. And he said he did something with the throttle cable but couldn't specifically tell me what. That's all I know.

Wow, you don't know what was done here, but are supposed to point you in the right directions! Look for a cracked cap, wires in wrong order in the cap, best guess because of the backfiring.