[77 TRASHCAN]

I worked for a school bus dealer for 14 years. Went to work there in 98. We had/sold tons of old Chevy 366/Holley 4 Bbl carbureted buses. Hundreds! If you ever saw that line of blown up/ burnt trucks/cars/buses that tried to escape from Kuwait, back then.... odds are some of the buses came from the dealer I worked at...

Lots of those buses would sit for a while before being sold. They were a pain to get started. First most had dead batteries. Then depending on who was trying to start them, they often made things worse, flooding them.
The seemingly best method was to make sure the engine would spin fairly well, THEN (without pumping the accelerator pedal even once) turning the engine over 4-5 seconds, (to fill the carb) THEN pump the accelerator pedal once or twice, Turn it over some more, see if it will hit, if not another 4-5 seconds turning over. Pump accelerator 2 more times. This usually works.
Seems like jumping i the seat and frantically turning the key while pumping the gas pedal usually results in flooding. Sounds strange, but getting just a little gas, at a time, into the engine allows it to flood more easily. Just you experience l.

I use the same method to start my 77 TA (Quadrajet of course!) and my 85 Ford F-150 trash truck ( factory gas hog 4 Bbl Holley, 351 HO). One of these days I’m going to haul off a load of scrap to the recycler, and leave everything with them, truck and all.

My starting method works for me, every time. Of course I never use any “E” gas, ever.