yes, the carburator needs to have fuel in it, but not too much, they normally have a overflow tube.. however for a test start to see if the fuel system are working properly, we usually spray ignitable spray (WD40) directly into the air intake while turning the key.. but before that we would try to see if the spark plug have sparks, take them out individually, touch its side to any metal part and turn the key for a short while and watch if they have any spark.. repeat test for each spark to see if they do have electric supply.. generator or in normal cars are called alternator, don't usually kick in (or in use) until AFTER the engine has started, so there should not be a problem when starting a car as long as the battery is still good.. normally the 3 things that can go wrong with starting a engine is 1. fuel (also includes air intake), 2. electricity (also includes timing of both sparks and valve!!), 3. compression (normally a rare problem).

if the fuel bowls are empty, that can help to start it but that effect will be short lived if the fuel pump is bad.

if all else is good such as cranking rpm, spark and timing along with compression, it can help to test things out.

That should have absolutely nothino to do with it not having spark. Follow the path of electricity from the plug to generator, something is amis.

Go to the site samba. Its everything to do with those old air cooled VW's

I was working on my dads 1968 vw van (the hippie vans) and we were trying to replace a generator, the van had shut off when my dad was in a advance auto part parking lot for something else when it wouldnt start at first and some young worker looked at it and didnt look like he knew what he was doing and said the generator was bad so we my dad bought a new one and that whys we were trying to replace it. We stopped trying to replace it because we realized it was going to be more challenging than we thought it was going to be and we decided we were just going to take it into a nearby auto shop that knows how to fix it because we dont even think its the generator at this point because the battery seems to be fine. The problem we're having now though is during the process of us taking stuff out to get to the generator we accidentally removed a bolt on what we believe to be the carburetor. The bolt we removed held fuel in and so after removing it some fuel poured out. And so we after we decided to stop messing with the generator we put everything back together the way it was before including the bolt but we cant get it to start. It doesnt spark everything moves and turns when we turn the ignition there just isnt the spark to turn it fully on and we were wondering if it was because of the fuel that leaked and if we poured fuel back into it would it help fix it? I know im not explaining it very wel but i can post more pics and details we just need the thing to start.SoweCantake.ItIn