TO-30 Problems

New to the board, so go easy on me. I have a TO-30 and cant get it started. Rebuilt the carb, have fire at the plugs, fuel out of the Marvel drain plug (lots of fuel). Sprayed starter fluid in intake, but still wont start. I'm at a loss. Main needle 1.5 out, Idle at 1 turn out. Anybody able to help me?
Thx in advance

How about a little background info? Was it running and quit? Did you buy it as a "no start"?
Why did you think you had to rebuild the carb? 6V or 12V?

Remember, it"s axiomatic that you must have a STRONG SPARK, at the RIGHT TIME, and have the CORRECT FUEL TO AIR RATIO in the cylinders for a spark ignition engine to start and run.

You say you have spark. What"s the spark look like. It needs to be FAT AND BLUISH-WHITE the color of lightning. Those spindly yellowish or reddiash blue spark won"t cut it. An easy test is to get any old spark plug, widen the gap to 3/16"-1/4", put it into the plug boot, hold the gronding wire to a good ground, try a start. You should see a FAT, BLUISH-_WHITE SPARK.
If you don"t have that then you need to check the primary ignition circuit to find out why, bad points( burned, oily, corroded) poorly set points, bad connections,bad condensor, bad coil, bad ground, etc.
Make sure the firing order is correct:1-3-4-2. #1 is at the front of the engine and the distributor rotates counter clockwise. Check the timing and the advance.
If the ignition side of the engine checks out, then go to the fuel delivery. it sounds like you have adequate fuel delivery. 1.5 turns out on the main jet is a little rich but it"sOK as a starting point. I"d try to enrich the idle mixture by screwing IN the idle mixture needle (which controls idle airflow)to maybe 3/4 turn.

Sytematically conduct these tests , starting with the ignition system and then to the fuel mixture adjustments and you should find the problem. Report back what you found. Avoid changing parts without knowing what the root cause of the problem is.

With points, they can get dirty--especially if tractor has sat for a long time.
Some quick things to do would be: pop cap off of distributor and run a small piece of heavy paper or distributor file across flat surface of points(to clean them).
With your good fuel flow, you must have a good working float and needle to stop that flow when the carb gets full--without, she will fill up, and, then go too far and flood out the carb and will NOT start.
I was taught by my father to turn OFF the sediment bulb as I was driving up to the barn and then turn off ignition. This kept the carb from flooding all over the barn floor (if float ever stuck DOWN).
You may want to leave the sediment bulb turned OFF and take drain plug out of bottom of Carb. Allow to set for a while and try to start with some either. An improper adjusted float or non working float will allow TOO much fuel in carb during starting attempts.
If she is a 6 volter, you may want to get super thick (0 or 00) guage battery cable to ensure you are getting the most from the 6 volt battery. Get a 00 ground cable long enough to run from the Pos. post all the way to the bolt that mounts the starter to the block. This avoids those old crappy connections that are weakening your cicuit. Mark

The advice below has probably already cured your problem. My 30 had gas and spark but wouldn"t fire and was in the woods such that I needed to get it running enough to get on a trailer or wait another day. It turned out the spark was enough to shock me but not enough to ignite the gas. The trouble was the points. They were new (installed by the seller) but set way too wide (about 60 thousandths). I eyeballed them closer and she fired right up. That engine should run with points anywhere between about 15 and 25 thousandths if they are clean and everything else is nominal. I think the spec. calls for about 20 - 22 thousandths.