As a bit of a distraction from more serious matters - what would be your plan in this situation.

I have a 1969 4/4 (Ford cross flow with mechanical fuel pump). It's been in a dry-ish lockup for the last 2 months. When I went to start it yesterday:

the engine turned freely and the battery was well charged (able to crank intermittently for at least 60 seconds - I had a jump start backup battery too)
the engine did not fire at all
no smell of petrol at the carb
I have not filled up since last year, but the petrol in the tank smelt okay. I tried again with the fuel filler cap removed in case a vacumn was forming in the tnk.

I removed the input fuel pipe to the fuel pump. This seemed to be bone dry.

As I had limited tools (ie none!) I stopped there.

Do mechanical pumps just fail when they are not used?
Is it possible the fuel tank outlet become blocked - that seems unlikely when it was just sitting there.
How good is the mechanical pump at dry priming itself ? (If I leave the car standing for more than 1-2 weeks it always takes 30 secs of cranking to reprime the pump and put petrol back in the carb)...

It's a bit inconvenient being in a lockup 2 miles away, so what would you do next ?

Dave
Blue 4/4 1969, Green +4 1953, (different) Green +8 1977