Ignition Problem.

Purchased A 1951 M-37 in Dec of 06. It is in great shape. About two months ago started to have problems starting and now refuses all together. It has a new wiring harness and seems to be getting proper voltage.
It will turn over fine and oil pressure and compression are fine it just refuses to fire. Carb is a new rebuild so I don't think Thats it.

I've ordered a new coil and disrtibuter rebuild kit, but coul'd there be another problem?
This is my second 37 the other being a derilict 53 former Pa. game comission. I drove the M880series in the Army so am far more familiar with that model than this.
Any thoughts wou'ld be appreciated. Tnx.

Only three things required.... compression, fuel, and spark.... so have you pulled a plug wire to check for spark? have you pulled the drain plug on your carb bowl to check for fuel? Is your hand primer on the fuel pump in the down position... pump will not function unless it is....is fuel being delivered to the carb? remove fuel line from carb and hand pump the fuel pump and check volume and pressure... is float stuck in up position... Mexican replacement condensors caused a lot of problems a few years back for M series stuff... Oh how I remember the Carb and automatic choke problems on the 318 in the M880 series. The M37 is much easier to work on for sure... M37s with the dash mounted fuel filter had problems with the hoses being porous and fuel drain back to the tank...crank crank crank.....

Greetings Ace. I am getting fuel. Now that you mention it it looks like a replacement Mex type condenser.
I have drained the tank and lines and put in fresh fuel. I will pull plugs and see. Yep I remember those problems too...
Tnx.

Hello guys. We've been having the exact same problems with our M37; the truck will stall out and lots of cranking but no starting. The truck has a secondary in-line fuel filter, glass one, which goes empty when this happens (normally 2/3 full). We have found that if we re-prime the line by filling it at this filter (hanging just before the carbureutur) several times, we can always get it running again.

But now you guys have given us (my boys and I) several more things to check, and I had completel forgotten about the hand-prime lever on the fuel pump, we'll check the position of that and why the heck didn't we USE that instead , it probably would have done what we were doing without all the disconnecting!

Will report back on what we find, thanks.

Look at those lines on the fuel filter, dash mounted, too... air drains back fuel to the tank from there...but they do not leak fuel out...