48 Super A trouble starting

[CapLoneStar]

My Super a has run great since I ve acquired it earlier this year. It s been giving me trouble starting lately and beginning to give me a headache. Instead of starting up after 1-3 cranks, it s now got me draining my battery with 15-20 cranks. Light Smoke shoots out of the muffler when this happens. I m thinking it s due to bad gaskets and oil seeping in where it doesn t belong. When it starts I m thinking it burns off whatever residual oil seeped in. Thoughts on this? Where to begin? What gaskets?

 

[gene bender]

I would pull all plugs then hook up #1 WIRE to a plug turn on the sw make sure the plug is grounded turn the engine over to see if you have good spark then you will know if its fire or the carb. TAKE a compression check while the plugs are out anything above 75 is good but you want all cycls reading close to each other

 

[old]

Begin with simple trouble shooting.
#1 check that you have good blue/white spark at the center wire of the distributor cap and at all the plugs that jump a 1/4 inch gap or more
#2 pull the carb drain plug and make sure you have a steady flow of gas that will fill a pint jar in less then 3 minutes
#3 pull the plugs out and look them over. They should look sort of brown in color if they are firing right. If black and sooty it is running to rich. If black and oily it is burning oil.
#4 do a compression test to make sure all cylinder have close to the same compression. If one or more cylinder have low compression that could be a bad head gasket. If say 2 cylinder side by side have low PSI good chance the gasket has blown between them.
#5 when was the last time you serviced the air cleaner and dumped the water and mud out and fill with fresh oil

 

[teddy52food]

Sounds like it needs a good tune up. They should start on the 1st or 2nd compression. Mag or dist?