help (with a lot of venting)

[cali_surfer]

I'm having a bad weekend..... well week actually. I can't get my motor to stay running. Here's some history. I spent just about 2 years doing bodywork, chassis work, etc. without driving my truck (69 chev LWB) and I rarely ran the motor. The problem I'm having now is starting to seriously frustrate me, almost to the point of breaking down and just having it towed somewhere for someone else to deal with. This is serious because I've always done everything myself, me and my friend built the motor.

Whats happening is the motor is hard to start and VERY rich. I'm running an Edelbrock carb. Before I started my restoration the motor ran extremely well, just a tad bit rich at idle because I had to fatten it up a bit due to the cam, 234 duration @ .050". Now when I try to start it its like raw fuel being dumped in. So, I took the Edelbrock off, pulled off the top, cleaned everything with carb cleaner, adjusted the floats per the instruction manual, set the idle screws 2 turns out for a base line, and bolted it back on. I checked out my fuel filter and the gas looked kinda funky, so I drained the tank and put on a new filter. I also put on a new set of spark plugs, R45XLS.. as I'm running Edelbrock RPM heads (the bosch plugs that were on there were totally fouled). I ran out of time that day because it started to rain, so I waited a day to try to start it. Set the choke, and it fired right up. It ran for about 30 seconds until I noticed that my braided fuel line was leaking. Shut it down and dealt with that. I tried to start it again it did the same thing before I took the carb off. It was running so rich that it was smoking out of my dual exhaust. The passenger bank (#2468) seemed richer than driver bank. I couldnt get it running again even with choke shut. Pulled the plugs off again and they were dripping with fuel, but also had a mixture of black carbon lookin stuff. The odor was a mixture of both fuel and oil.

This leads me to where I am now. Its weird though, I want to think its a carburetor problem since its rich. But those Edelbrocks are so simple. I know my wires are good, I checked the resistance on each, they range from 950-1700 ohms (Accel 8.8s). I know the coil is getting power since it has run before, I'm assuming that the HEI module is fine since its run before? I set the timing to 10 degrees advance at idle when I got it running the first time. This is just driving me crazy. I really dont have the money to pay for anything mechanical since I'm trying to buy some new wheels and tires to get this 3 year old project finished, but it has to be road worthy before it gets the new rollers. I'm debating on whether I should pull off the intake and heads to see what kind of condition my cylinders/pistons are in. I'm sure sitting for over a year without being run wasn't good for it, but I didnt think it would cause any damage.

Anyone have anything to say that would make me feel better?? I have so much f#$%&*! cash in this truck I cant let a stupid problem like this get me down. I just want to drive it again!!!