Welcome to the Caddy Club my friend. I just ordered about 350 dollars worth of small and large parts for mine tonight. Almost done with the restore. Then I get to drive it.For as long as that thing sat up on the bus did you drain the fuel, clean the tank and replace the fuel filter before trying to run it as you are? I found that my fuel was OK but when I went to drain the filters they gave me a ton of water and other unmentionables. So I figure the PO never serviced the filter and just replaced it. It runs uphill a lot better not being starved for fuel. Amazing how that works. The PO also couldn't get the OEM filter off the flange so he add a second filter in line for some reason. If the first one is plugged the IP was going to have a harder time pulling fuel through two filters instead of just one. I finally got the filter off the flange but it took a chisel and a hefty hammer to do it. Do you have a section of clear line between the filter and the IP? That will tell you if you are pulling air into your IP and potentially building it up to a point that the engine just stops running altogether. Good luck killing all that rust and making it shine again. Lots of prep to do there.
I think I would be buying a used hood and saving all the time and rust for some other part of the truck. Easy to find fenders and hoods. Not so easy to find bed and decent tail gates. Makes mine look like a show room condition truck.