I just called Napa and they said that the furthest they go back for a vacuum advance is 1975 with a 2000cc motor.
Will that work on a 1600cc distributor? If not, any suggestions on what to do for a vacuum advance? Do they sell a distributor, that doesn't need the vacuum advance? ( If I remember right, on a vw bug a .009 distributor does away with the vacuum advance) Any thing like that for a Pinto?? That is the only thing holding me back on driving my new baby!!! The Green Machine!!! LOL
Thanks!!
Kim
You want to get a vacuum advance distributor for performance and fuel economy reasons. I have a 71 Pinto with a 2000cc motor and my distributor has both vacuum advance and retard on the distributor.
What is wrong with your distributor that makesyou suspect the vacuum is wrong? Have you tried checking the tmiing? Have you tested if your vacuum advance distributor is hooked up? Have you checked if the vacuum advance pod is blown?
Nope, all Pintos had the vacuum advance. I agree with Reed about what he is saying about the vacuum advance. If there is a problem with it, you might want to replace the whole distributor since it is available from what I can see. Just my $.02.
What is the car doing anyways?
If your distributor is like mine and has a vacuum advance and vacuum retard feature on the distributor, one or both may be disconnected, or hooked up backwards, or not functioning.
I say try and diagnose what is wrong first before just throwing parts at it. You may be able to just buy a new vacuum advance unit and keep the stock distributor.
Pictures would help here.
+1.. Diagnosis of the beast always helps.
The car will fall on it's face if you step on the gas. We hooked up a gauge (don't know the name of it personally) that you pump it up, and if the vacuum advance is good, it should hold the pressure. It didn't. So hubby and friend that had the tool said the vacuum advance has a hole in because it wont hold pressure!!
So you can buy a whole new distributor for the 71 from a auto parts store?
Thanks for the help so far!!!
Kim
Sure can. Here's the link for the distributor on Partsamerica.com
http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductList.aspx?parttype=218&ptset=A&searchfor=Distributor
If you do buy a whole new distributor, I recommend just swapping the new vacuum advance unit onto your old distributor. I have heard nothing bud bad reports about reman distributors lately, and there is no guarantee that the reman unit has the right advance springs in it for your car.
Keep the new unit on standby, but try running the original distributor with the new vacuum advance first. Or see if you can just get a new vacuum diaphragm.
For a 1600 Pinto....
You can get an electronic distributor without a vacuum advance.
It is Mallory part number 4558101.
You will need to change the gear from your old distributor to the new one.
I have one in my 1600, it works great! They are expensive though.
The best price I found was through Amazon.com believe it or not!
If you need an entire rebuilt distributor, try Rockauto.com
Use their online catalog. This is a lower cost option.
If you just need the vacuum advance, I have a brand new "old stock" vacuum advance.
You can have it for FREE if you donated & joined this site.
Rene
Quote from: Starliner on November 02, 2008, 09:38:54 PM
For a 1600 Pinto....
You can get an electronic distributor without a vacuum advance.
It is Mallory part number 4558101.
You will need to change the gear from your old distributor to the new one.
I have one in my 1600, it works great! They are expensive though.
The best price I found was through Amazon.com believe it or not!
If you need an entire rebuilt distributor, try Rockauto.com
Use their online catalog. This is a lower cost option.
If you just need the vacuum advance, I have a brand new "old stock" vacuum advance.
You can have it for FREE if you donated & joined this site.
Rene
I did donate!!! :) I will PM you!!! Thanks!!!
Unfortunately, I don't think that lack of vacum advance will cause the problem you describe. Vacuum advance is mainly for fuel economy; I've had cars where the vac. advance was disconnected, and the car ran fine. you will probably be looking at ignition timing, secondary ignition or carburation IMO.
mike
Quote from: pintogirl on October 31, 2008, 09:22:12 PM
The car will fall on it's face if you step on the gas. We hooked up a gauge (don't know the name of it personally) that you pump it up, and if the vacuum advance is good, it should hold the pressure. It didn't. So hubby and friend that had the tool said the vacuum advance has a hole in because it wont hold pressure!!
So you can buy a whole new distributor for the 71 from a auto parts store?
Thanks for the help so far!!!
Kim
Quote from: lugnut on November 02, 2008, 11:09:49 PM
Unfortunately, I don't think that lack of vacum advance will cause the problem you describe. Vacuum advance is mainly for fuel economy; I've had cars where the vac. advance was disconnected, and the car ran fine. you will probably be looking at ignition timing, secondary ignition or carburation IMO.
mike
Wellllll, if the diaphragm is blown in the vacuum advance unit, she will have a constant vacuum leak and the timing won't advance like it should. The driveability problems could very well be all due to the blown vacuum advance diaphragm.
Replace the diaphragm and double check the base timing. By fixing your diaphragm you are elminiating a vacuum leak and you are getting the vacuum advance to work again. This makes a big difference, especially on acceleration.
accellerator pump? diaphragm? leaking? squirter nozzles plugged?
i have a story to tell about accellerator pumps not working. for a later date
Quote from: srt on November 03, 2008, 03:56:42 AM
accellerator pump? diaphragm? leaking? squirter nozzles plugged?
Agreed that this could also be carb problems. However, she has tested the distributor vacuum diaphragm and knows it is bad. I say start with replacing just the diaphragm and make sure the base tmiing is correct and the advance and retard hoses are hooked up correctly. If you still have problems, then you should start looking for vacuum leaks and rebuilding the carb.
OK, I replaced my vacuum advance with the one that Rene sent me! (Thanks again, Rene) Bad news is, still have the problem! You step on the gas and the engine starves for fuel. One good thing, is I know the vacuum advance is good and not the problem. I did disconnect one hose off of the vacuum advance and plugged it with my finger, then I revved the engine, and it would rev up!! I did that a couple of times and it revved up pretty good each time. As soon as I connected the advance back up, it would not rev up, basically it revs down, LOL!! So I got to wondering, did I hook the vacuum lines up wrong??? I tried to look at the book I have but it doesn't show how they are supposed to be hooked up! I have the hose going from the top of the exhaust to the small tube on the vacuum advance. The hose coming from the base of the carburetor, is hooked to the lower bigger tube on the advance. Does that sound right!! The latter hose I mentioned above, really doesn't fit the top tube of the advance, so it leads me to believe I have them hooked up right!
I have not checked the timing and also haven't given it a tune up yet. So that will be the next step with new cap, rotor, points, condenser, and plugs and wires!! I did check Napa's online store and they carry all the tune up parts, so I will be getting them Sunday!
I do know it has a bit of a miss, so I will do the tune up before I go into anything else! (oh, this miss is a bit more announced now that it has the new vacuum advance!) You can hear it backfire through the exhaust. Not a loud backfire just a pop once an again!
I will update as I figure things out!! :smile:
Kim
The distributor vacuum retard port is the one closest to the distributor cap. That vacuum line should go to the intake manifold.
The distributor vacuum advance line is the one furthest from the distributor cap. That vacuum line goes to the carburetor.
You may need to buy some plastic vacuum line adapters to get the vacuum lines to fit if you lost your originals.
Set the timing with the vacuum lines disconnected from the distributor and plugged.
Here is another test. Get a long piece of vacuum hose and attach to each distributor test port. Now zoop on the one of the vacuum lines. If the motor speeds up, that is the vacuum advance. If the motor slows down that is the vacuum retard.
I would recommend trying to block the de-acceleration valve. Do a search on this site, I heard they have a quick trick to do this with a penny. I did it a different way.
Because I did some clean-up of my exhaust manifold, exhaust system, and ignition recurve it ran a little lean. I re-drilled the main jet to 0.052 diameter. (if you do this, use fine oil & spin the drill at high RPMs) The original jet was stamped 125. It was approximately .049 diameter before I drilled it. It suer helped driveability and did not impact my mileage.
You may want to adjust the valves too! It is very easy. If the valve clearances are tight (little clearance) it will not run properly.
Forgot to say...
At idle when you attach the vacuum lines, the motor will slow down. At idle you have high intake manifold vacuum and the vacuum retard on the distributor will retard the timing. The carburetor venturi vacuum is low at idle so it is not advancing the timing.
As you increase engine speed, the intake manifold vacuum drops and the carburetor venturi vacuum increases. As this occurs the timing is now starting to advance.
Watch the timing marks with a timing light. Look at it at idle, then as you increase the engine speed you should see the timing advance.
One more...
With the engine OFF. Remove the air cleaner. Look inside the carburetor.
When you press the gas pedal or accelerator linkage you should see a shot of gas injected.
This is the accelerator pump circuit of the carburetor.
Also, pick up a G1 Fram gas filter and put it in line between the fuel pump & carburetor.
Ok, I put in new plugs, wires, points, condenser, cap and rotor. I set the points myself, and I'm pretty sure they are right!!! LOL It runs good anyway!! The only thing I havn't done yet is check the timing. I will wait for hubby to get home so he can help me!! Oh, I also checked my other pinto for the vacuum advance hookups, and mine was wrong. So I changed it to the correct way!
It still has the same problem! It runs great at idle, but as soon as you step on the gas, it boggs down! I can play with the vacuum lines and get the car to rev up, but it doesn't do it 100% of the time, while messing with the lines. I gave it throttle while looking into the carb, and I can see one jet squirt gas, but it does it once and then quits. Is it supposed to squirt the whole time you are pushing on the throttle?
I still need to do a search on the de acceleration stuff, I'm not sure what that all means. So I need to go learn about it!!
Hubby will help me work on it tonight so hopefully I can update later!!!
To be honest the carb has probably not been rebuilt before. You might want to go ahead & rebuild the carb. There could be some dirt in there that could be causing part of your problem. On my 77 I was having similar problems & it turned out to be a combo of dirt in the carb & timing being off. Make sure you follow the procedure to check the timing though.
Lots of luck.
Update. We checked the timing and it is now in time!! But, still same problem!
Tomorrow I am going to rob Peter (grey pinto) to pay Paul (green machine) LOL. I will pull the carberator that was actually being used a few months ago, from the grey pinto and put it on the green machine. If that works, I can rebuild the other carb later. I plan on pulling the motor out of the grey car anyway, so there is no hurry on that one!!
I will let you guy's know how it goes tomorrow! :smile:
Oh, and your right on the dirt! I had to blow mouse poop away from the spark plug holes before I could remove the plugs!!!