[Walt Fricke]

My thought was same as Josh's: when you put on the new cap, you got the wires installed wrong. Easy enough to do.

Then you found the float issue. Then it still wouldn't start, but the #1 was faithfully firing its plug, so the timing light showed it firing, and that it was 35 engine degrees off. If you'd just moved the wires around (the right direction, whatever that would be) instead of resetting the distributor, would it have started?