Hey all,
as you guys may know I went to Carlisle for the meet & on the way home my car died. I got towed & replaced the fuel filter & pump & it runs now, but not too well. I can rev it up & it stumbles a bit & when I drive it wants to bog down & stumble, while attempting to die. I have noticed the damn tow truck driver broke my downpipe as the car is much louder than before it was towed. Could the downpipe have anything to do with it?
HELP!!!!
gonna try replacing the accelerator pump. Also put in some Heet water remover to see if that helped.
Anyone on here have any ideas?
Did you change anything else?
I doubt the exhaust pipe would do that.
What do you have for fuel press. now?
Filter?
Start back with the basics, fuel, air, comp., timing.....
Bill
It sounds like the accelorater pump too me. 57 ford did the same the before we replaced it....it bogged down while trying to rev it. Good Luck!
Quote from: 77turbopinto on June 06, 2006, 07:59:23 PM
Did you change anything else?
I doubt the exhaust pipe would do that.
What do you have for fuel press. now?
Filter?
Start back with the basics, fuel, air, comp., timing.....
Bill
After I changed the filter at 11:30 pm after the car was off the tow truck I tried to start it, but nothing. I then pulled the pump off the next day & replaced the 4 month old pump & it would start but not run long. Got it to run but runs like crap when I rev it.
I took the accelerator pump off today & rusty fuel poured out. I'm gonna pull the carb off & clean it out. I think the tank needs boiled out. the rust I think plugged the ports
If the car was running well before this, and you found gunk in the line, the LAST thing I would do is pull the carb. down. The filter is right before the carb. and SHOULD have kept the junk from the carb. It is worth a shot to put in a new filter, blow out the lines, and maybe drop the tank and clean it out. You don't always need a fancy fix with the tank; I have droped quite a few, rinsed them out and soved the problem.
Don't assume the "new" pump is good.
Bill
Ditto that last post on all points.
The new pump IS good. I already did a volume check & it came out like it should. The car will actually start & run, just won't accelerate for crap when I touch the gas pedal even the slightest bit. That & te crap is getting past the filter & in the carb. That's why I want to clean the carb out off the car. I do plan on dropping the tank & cleaning it out when it's empty, but I've got a full tank of gas from where I filled up before I got on the freeway.
Have you considered that you may have gotten water contaminated gas? Your description of how the engine is running, but dies easily and has no power, jibes with
that. Adding a few bottles of HEET to the gas tank should eliminate that as a possibility.
We've had a few experiences with fuel tanks having atmospheric water condensation into the gas tank causing the same problem (mainly in vehicles that sit without being driven for long period of time), and the first time it happens in a vehicle you're driving, you'd swear that there is something major wrong with the ignition system or the fuel system.
BUT, because a couple of sheared teeth missing from a timing belt or a jumped timing chain could have moved the cam to crank timing far enough away from normal that the engine might run as you describe, a weak ignition (mostly if you have a points type ignition system), AND a distributor that has walked could all be doing the same thing, I'd double check the cam/crank timing first, and then the initial ignition timing, and the quality of spark you're getting, just to be sure nothing there has moved, or changed.
That was the first thing I tried after changing the pump & filter. No luck it still ran poorly even after letting it set a bit. I thought moisture myself since it was fine up until after the last fuel stop I made Sunday morning before I went to the fairgrounds. It ran fine until I stopped to remove a bad wiper blade off my car. Then I shut it down & it started acting wierd.
I didnt think of checking the belt to se if all is well, so I'll do that, as well as checking the ignition timing.
How long after (in actual running time or in miles) you got the last fuel, was it that the problem started? If it was just a few minutes or a couple of miles, that would be about enough time for the entire fuel line and carb to be flushed of the previous fuel and replaced by what you had just gotten.
It may just be a coincidence, and sometimes things happen that way, but suspecting a problem with the gas, if it started VERY shortly afterwards seems to be the most logical place to start
Speaking of gas, it could possibly also be STALE gas that had lost a little octane by sitting too long. Or contamination of another kind, such as by having some diesel or kerosene mixed in it by accident. These sorts of things do happen occasionally. And did you by any chance get the gas at a podunk or out of the way gas station that might not have a rapid turnover of fuel in their tanks and gets infrequent deliveries?
If you have enough containers to put gas in, maybe you could drain it as much as possible and then put in one or 2 gallons of KNOWN, good gas?
Or barring that, do you have a lawnmower that you could try running a small amount of the gas through to see how IT reacts to that fuel, to see if IT loses power under load?
I can try it in the mower but it's half dead. gotta try something though.
well, I tried the gas in the mower & it didn't run any worse than it already does. (the mower) Also examined the fuel closer than I did before & it couldn't look any better than it did. At this point I'm convinced the gas is good. NO DIRT :o I sprayed out the carb with some carb spray while it was on the car & also cleaned out the accelerator pump housing. I'm thinking the carb is possibly junk, as I had to replace a couple screws on the accelerator pump stripped aluminum) The pump did tighten up ok & no leaks were present. I'm just very confused.
I just want my car back on the road so badly. I need her back in storage so my dad can stop complaining about too many cars around.
Matt, do you have a catalitic converter on your exhaust system, sometimes they get so filled up with junk there's no where for the exhaust to go, which means no power.
Just a thought,
Doug
no convertor, just a straight pipe. I bought the car like that.
This has got to be frustrating,I know.
BUT,
when I suggested trying it in a mower, the expectation was that it would be in a
mower that WAS running right before you tried it. A trial in a poorly running one would not actually have accomplished anything valid...... Do you have another mower available to try running the gas through? Remember, what you need to do is try comparing how it acts in an engine when that engine is UNDER A HEAVY LOAD, (like your Pinto's when it's accelerating) not simply running.
Another set of fuel related possibilities that may not have been touched on (or tested for yet), is that the carb is actually already either running way too rich or too lean at idle speeds and when you add the additional gas from the acceleration circuit, it is either then SO rich that it falls on it's face, or if too lean, it is getting so much additional gas BEFORE it can get enough additional air to compensate for the too lean portion of the TOTAL mixture (starting with the idle circuit mixure and adding that from the acc. circuit), that it does the same thing.
(One common too rich scenario:
There may be a piece of crud or rust stuck in the inlet valve seat area or the resiliant valve seat may be hardened/worn/grooved, or the needle itself is burred and hanging up inside the valve instead of sliding smoothly and any of those causes are allowing a continuous flow of gas into the carb, overfilling it., which results in an unstable, too rich idle mixture)
To see if the current idle mixture is very far off from the proper stochiometric (possibly misspelled) or most efficient range of approx. 14:1 (air:gasoline) try this. It doesn't require any special equipment, and the only cost is whatever gas is burned during the test.
Start the cold engine and once it's running, look to see that the choke plate/butterfly is actually opening properly as the engine warms up.
If that's hanging up, it will be idling too rich once it warms up, but from improperly restricting the air, not from too much gas running through the carb.
If the choke opens properly, next try gradually restricting the airflow through the carb's throat with either your hand or something else that CAN'T POSSIBLY get sucked into the carb.
If the amount of gas that is running through the carb is actually ALREADY too much for the amount of air it's getting now, and the airflow ISN'T being impeded by a sticky choke
plate, the engine would tend to slow down when you manually restrict the airflow this way.
If on the other hand, the mixture is ALREADY TOO LEAN, the engine would tend to speed up when you manually restrict the airflow this way.
In either case, if you find that the mixture IS off, at least you'll have a solid starting point and should be able to proceed from there.
One other thing that someone else touched on.
It's possible that you may have something internally obstructing the exhaust system that allows a small airflow, but not a larger capacity flow. With a cat, they can get plugged easily, but cat free systems can get obstructed too.
I've seen a lot of partially crushed exhaust pipes, pieces of broken off and wedged gasket material, and even muffler baffles that have broken off and moved to block the exhaust flow INSIDE of the muffler, that I wouldn't be surprised if it even turned out to just be something simple like that.
When you cleaned the carb, Did you clean all the jets? There are lso some really small aced portles and chambers in these carbs, that can easily get clogged with all sorts of junk. The rusty fuel you mentioned still brings me back to our 57. When took the top off the carp, it was full of rusty junk. The jets were totally clogged. Are you sure the accelorator pump is not leaking? The best thing to do without dropping the tank would be to completely clean out the carb, inside ond out, it might be helpful to have a diagram of your particualer carb, just to see how all flows. Make sure that all check balls are there, you know, and get an idea of what little passages could be clogged. You might even look into some new gaskets and seals, and check the fit of the carb to the intake manifold, it might have a vacuum leak, somewhere in between the spacer or something. Also, before reinstalling a clean carb, you might consider trying to start the car and let the pump flush out some of the bad, or rusty gas. You might also consider an inline filter. And check that your float level is within the specifications that it requires. Hope this helps!
Well, to throw some light on the subject I went ahead & pulled the spark plugs. The plugs appear to be carbon fouled up, so I now know the car is running rich. I'm gonna get a new set of plugs for it, but my question is how do I adjust the fuel misture on the carb? It's a 5200 Holley carb. Also my dad was just cutting the grass with the mower & he musta fixed the problem on it as it was working fine, so that validates that test. Found out it was a bad throttle spring, but that's irrelivent to the car problem. My point on that is that he had no problems with the engine cutting out or such, so that eliminates the gas.
Watching the choke was a good idea. I actually did that before & it was functioning properly.
p.s. please bear with my stupidity on this problem, as I know only what I learn here when it comes to carbs. I know efi & can fix it with one hand tied behind my back, but carbs stupify me.
Thanks for everyone's help as it is greatly appreciated. I try anything so I can both fix the car & learn at the same time.
Quote from: goodolboydws on June 08, 2006, 08:29:03 PM
One other thing that someone else touched on.
It's possible that you may have something internally obstructing the exhaust system that allows a small airflow, but not a larger capacity flow. With a cat, they can get plugged easily, but cat free systems can get obstructed too.
I've seen a lot of partially crushed exhaust pipes, pieces of broken off and wedged gasket material, and even muffler baffles that have broken off and moved to block the exhaust flow INSIDE of the muffler, that I wouldn't be surprised if it even turned out to just be something simple like that.
ummm... I doubt it's that, & Only because of the nice crack & break at the bottom of the downpipe. Man, this thing is loud cuz of that. I will however check the muffler as I am gonna get the downpipe replaced asap.
Quote from: BlueGoldPinto on June 08, 2006, 08:31:49 PM
When you cleaned the carb, Did you clean all the jets? There are lso some really small aced portles and chambers in these carbs, that can easily get clogged with all sorts of junk. The rusty fuel you mentioned still brings me back to our 57. When took the top off the carp, it was full of rusty junk. The jets were totally clogged. Are you sure the accelorator pump is not leaking? The best thing to do without dropping the tank would be to completely clean out the carb, inside ond out, it might be helpful to have a diagram of your particualer carb, just to see how all flows. Make sure that all check balls are there, you know, and get an idea of what little passages could be clogged. You might even look into some new gaskets and seals, and check the fit of the carb to the intake manifold, it might have a vacuum leak, somewhere in between the spacer or something. Also, before reinstalling a clean carb, you might consider trying to start the car and let the pump flush out some of the bad, or rusty gas. You might also consider an inline filter. And check that your float level is within the specifications that it requires. Hope this helps!
The accelerator pump was leaking so I fixed that. still a problem. I rebuilt the carb previously so It has new gaskets & the like in it already, but I'm prolly gonna take the carb apart & flush out all the jets to make sure there's no debris in them. Should I replace the gaskets again after I do this or should I be able to reuse them? Not trying to be cheap, especially with a fuel system (I already had one car die to a fuel fire, so I am EXTRA careful) but I honestly don't know if the gaskets & parts would be reusable or not.
Did you try adjusting the idler screw? Doing that with the car running should help with the fuel mixture problem
Yes. your old gaskets if you just replaced them should be fine
cool. glad to hear that. Thanx..
I thought the enrichment screw was seperate from the idle screw. The screw at the base of the carb right? if that's it what way do I turn it & how much to lean it out?
Since the problem started SUDDENLY, the odds are very good that it ISN'T a mixture adjustment situation per se, (as the mixture screws don't tend to suddenly move on their own) but something more along the lines of something that has been mentioned previously.
Before you run out and buy new plugs consider this:
While fuel that doesn't burn completely WILL form sooty deposits on the spark plugs, that isn't the only cause of sooty plugs-not by a long shot.
They could also be sooty from an ignition problem-one that isn't always FIRING the plugs, an unrelated problem, such as oil consumption from leaky valve seals, or even fuel that will not BURN properly-even when supplied in the proper MIXTURE.
Gotta go, the dogs are getting ready to call the ASPCA about their 2 hour late supper.
Yeah, goodolboy is right about that. I would try cleaning the plugs, reinstalling them, and messing with the idler screw while the car is running. I THINK( but don't hold me ransome on this) that counterclockwise is for a richer mixture and clockwise is for a leaner mixture, but doing this with the car running will tell you for sure.
Duh, I forgot to mention to repull your plugs and check the condition of them then. An oily plug looks different than a plug that is dirty from carbon, so that might give you an idea as to what is causing that. The mixture might not even be the problem. I would diefinatly pull the carb and clean it though, as a good start
that's where I'll start then. BTW, the plugs are a dry carbon deposit type as opposed to an oily soot.
Pulled the carb off& tore it down to find nothing but rust & gunk in the jets. Got it all cleaned out so I'm gonna put it back together. Once the car runs low on fuel I'll pull the tank & clean it out to keep this from happening again.
Got it all cleaned out & the carb back together. Changed the plugs & leaned it out a bit & the car fired right up. Runs great. Drove it around the block, which is more than I could say about it Sunday. I just gotta change the fuel filter a bit more often until I clean out the tank.
Thanks for everybodys help on getting my car back on the road. Atleast I know it was something I coud have done on the side of the road,& next time this happens I might just go ahead.
Way to go! Good to hear! ;D :D ;) :) ;)
Acting up again. I don't know why. It starts up ok & will start to drive ok but then falls flat on its face & wants to stall.