1985 2W 2.0 Ram 50 will not start suddenly

Hello. I’m lost with this I am reaching out in the hopes that someone might have an idea what’s wrong with my car. I recently got a Dodge Ram 50 from someone for really cheap and all it needed was a clutch. I put a new clutch in and everything was great for a couple weeks. One day, I go to work and when I try to leave, it won’t start. Some passerby helped me start it. I’m not really sure what he did, he was sticking a screwdriver in the area where the throttle and choke components are. I then proceeded to drive home and noticed that it felt like the car had less power, the gas was less responsive. When I stopped at a traffic light and started to takeoff again the car stalled and then wouldn’t start again. I left it there for a few hours and when I came back to try to start it again, it was able to start but the engine sounded terrible and would only stay running if I was holding the gas down. I then pushed it home to mess with it later. I was able to get it to start again a couple days later but it would want to die unless I continue to hold the gas down. However, once it warmed up, it would stay running. When I tried to start it again though the next day, it wouldn’t start no matter what I did and this is where I’m at now.
It appears to be getting fuel fine (Sprays into the carburetor when I tap the gas and shoots out of the fuel pump line when I crank) and sparking fine(I tested each plug they all Spark), just no start. I have replaced the spark plugs which were rather dark and put on new wires because one broke when I was removing them. Also, I thought my coil was bad and put a new one in but it made no difference.

Hi and welcome to mightyram. You could have a fuel blockage somewhere (a clogged primary jet?), the fuel cut solenoid on the carb might be sketchy - there are a number of things that can cause a difficult cold start. The fouled plugs are pointing to a rich fuel issue which can only be a carb fault or spark. You'll need to do basic checks on it like ignition timing. You'll need to know if the vac advance on the distributor is still holding vacuum. A dead vac advance servo is one thing that will kill performance and make it difficult to start.

Good Luck with it Ham & welcome here... :thumbup:

These are old trucks, could be anything but if spark & ignition & valve timing are ok then it could be a fuel issue... Compression is ok (?) all bolts are tight, no vacuum leaks (?) So far my California SMOG truck needed:

1) new spark plugs & wires & oil & air filter & ignition coil
2) carburetor spray cleaner & new fuel filter & new air filter
3) Lucas fuel treatment at gas fill ups
4) A little water sprayed into high revving engine (poor man's Seafoam)
5) new fuel pump
6) new ignition switch (cured an intermittent slow cranking problem)
7) ignition timing adjustment (mechanic said it was retarded too much)
8) replaced fusible wires near battery (this was done when we bought the truck as we saw the existing frayed wires was ready to separate)
9) cleaned inside of distributor & cap
10) non engine stuff: new shocks, new clutch, new paint, new vinyl floor mat
11) PENDING MOD: Install an Electric Fan behind radiator

Thank you for the info guys! So the situation has changed a bit. The car starts but immediately dies. Specifically, it dies as soon as I let go of the key(let it out of cranking position). The Google gods said that a bad ballast resistor or ignition coil would cause this and I've replaced both of those.

A little backstory: When I was debugging my previous problem, I made the dumb mistake of hooking my portable jumper directly to the ignition coil (wrong I assume because it made an awful sound[a loud buzzy/clicky noise, Google gods say it's the possible sound of a fusible link doing it's job of frying; however, I believe I checked those[continuity test] and they're fine, though the manual only speaks of one right by the battery]). Also, in the middle of all this, my starter went bad(it was already on it's last leg priorly I believe. I don't know if that relevant but just thought I'd mention it.

I'm thinking I might have fried the ignition switch in this process. Any tips would be well appreciated.

Also, xboxrox, you mentioned you replace the fusible wires near the battery. Did you build these yourself or buy them somewhere? I can't find them anywhere and my whole positive terminal is rather decrepit, but I can't find a replacement for that either. All shops have are generic ones and this ones all fancy :shrug:

FUSIBLE LINK WIRES:
We sourced them from a donor truck at PicknPull in California when we first got the truck -- just luck that my eye glanced in that direction to notice one of them hanging on by one tiny thread of a wire strand YIKES..! God is good...

there is an ignition module in the distributor, and a pickup coil assembly - you may have fried them when you jumped the truck on the ignition coil. They can be found on rockauto and eBay

Just a thought - check the power out from the ignition relay. If it starts on crank but dies the minute the key is released it could either be the relay or the ignition switch assembly.