Um, crap. Now what's happening....HELLLLLLLLLP!!!!!!!

B

blueroo

Well-known member
First, I would like to apologize if I seem "spazzy" about this. This problem seemed to come out of nowhere and I have no idea where it's coming from and I need to get it fixed really quick since I have class tomorrow and I missed class yesterday because of it.

Anyhow, here's the situation. My drive from my house to my school is roughly 30-35 minutes. During this drive, I go through most common speed limits. 25, 35, 40, 45, and 55.

Yesterday we got our first real snow. I was driving to school and for the first half of the trip everything was going fine. About halfway to school, the car started to act up and I first attributed it to wheel slip. No biggie. It would happen every time I left a stop sign or stop light. It didn't quite make sense though since last winter this didn't happen. But nonetheless I started feathering it, and but the problem still remained.

It wasn't until after I got off the road I was doing 55 on (for a matter of 1500ft max) and got onto the next road that I fully realized it wasn't wheelslip. Leaving the stop sign had the problem but I still thought of it nothing major. Shifted into 2nd gear like normal and was fine until about 3100RPM. At that point, the problem came up again, but I was going in a straight line and was accelerating normally now, not leaving a stop sign/light. The car seemed to fall flat on its face and it felt like ignition breakup. I let off the throttle for a few seconds, got back on it normally, 3100RPM, same deal. I couldn't go any faster. For the remaining 5 mintues of my trip to school it got worse and worse.

I got to school, backed into my space, put the car in neutral, set the brake, got out, lifted the hood and about passed out. There seemed to be water on top of the carb, around the vent valve rod, etc. I started playing with the linkage, gently revving the motor and was getting the ignition breakup or whatever at a very low rpm. Normally, in neutral, nothing happens until over 5 grand. This was happening well under 5 grand. So I shut the car off, went to class to hand in my assignment, told my prof I had to go and went back out to my car.

I got back in, pushed the clutch in, lightly pumped the gas twice and turned the key. Much to my surprise, the car fired right up without any hesitation. This is good I thought. I played with the gas and it seemed normal. So I started to drive home. And it seemed normal at first. Not 100%, but not bad at all. Less than halfway home though it started to act up. At this point I had my headlights on, my foglights on and my front defroster on high. I shut the defroster off and it seemed (it could've just been me though) to get better for a bit. Then it started acting up again. I changed my route to stick to the main road (mainly 501 for those who know the area) so in case something went seriously wrong, I had a short trip to walk to get to a phone or whatever. And it just began to get progressively worse. 1st gear below 2000RPM sounded terrible and in 2nd gear I couldn't go past 20mph which is not a good thing on 501 with a line of cars behind you.

Theres' three things I could think of that might be causing the problem but none of them seem to make perfect sense to me. Problem with the carb, problem with the ignition timing, problem with the valves.

However, the last one I adjusted was valves and that was this past Friday, and from Friday through Monday, I drove the car without any problems.

I rebuilt the carb about three weeks ago, and aside from a little bit of gasoline "weeping" around the main body gaskets and running slightly rich, it seems to be fine.

Igntion wise, I have no clue.

There are a few other things, I don't know if they have any bearing whatsoever, but I'm going to list them

1)Normally the car will warm up to 190 before dropping to around 155. Lately it warms up to 165, falls to about 130-140, up to 180, then back to 155.
2) This problem has beeng very ongoing. The heater puts out virtually no heat and every so often there's a "sloshing" sound from the heater box. Both heater lines are hot to the touch like normal though.
3) When I adjusted the valves, the idle really smoothed out to around a consitent 1000RPM. Yesterday it was everywhere from 550 to about 1200.


Can anyone at least tell me what to look for? Thanks so much.
 
I'm not going to offer much, but I'll say measure your vaccume. There may be a leak and it could account for much of this.
 
I'm thinking ignition. Weak ignition will often let an engine run fine with no load, but under load it'll go to pieces.

Take the dizzy cap off, make sure it's nice and dry inside. Look for cracks and carbon tracks inside the cap, it should be nice and clean with maybe a light coating of dust. The cap and rotor contacts should be fairly crud-free.

Next, take the rotor off and look at the points. My bet is that they've either got so much crud built up on them that they're not opening far enough, or they're worn or burned so that they're not closing long enough. They should be nice and clean, with the actual contact points all nice and shiny - not rough and burned or covered in a powdery gunk. I forget the specified points gap, I think it's .015 of an inch, which is about the thickness of a matchbook cover (like anybody has a book of matches around anymore...).

If everything looks fine inside the dizzy, then you need to pull the spark plugs and see if they're fouled with gunk. If they're clean, then it's time to check the plug wires with an ohm-meter, and if they're ok then I'd look at the capacitor, and if that's ok then I'd scratch my head and say "Hmmmmm...".

My money is on your points being dirty/burned/out of adjustment.
 
James, the only problem with my points being shot is I have none. I have the Ignitor I system. Plugs look fine.

With the vacuum however, if I remember correctly, at idle, my car has almost no vacuum at all.
 
Gotta love the first winter drives.

I'm going to offer a few other things. The above stuff is great to start on, but if it doesn't solve it...look at these:

1) Remember the basics. Anything something goes wrong, I always double check my timing and vacuum. It's better to rule those out first. I once had my dizzy bolt loosen up on my down the road and the dizzy spun out of tune.

2) Check your choke. Make sure it is opening up when the car is warmed up. Again, I had this problem with an old 1101, the choke flap randomly stopped working and wouldn't open. Car would run fine until the car warmed up and I tried to step on the gas. I did a temporary fix with a twig from the side of the road. It was just the flap that closed, not the linkage.

3) Make sure it is STAYING open. On my Holly 390/4V, when it was really cold out, the choke (after driving on the highway) would cool back down and reclose the choke, make it behave weird when coming off the highway.

4) As for your cooling system (which may be impacting it all), since it is cold, I would try putting some cardboard over 50% of your radiator. I noticed after I completely redid my cooling system (3 Row, new heater core, pump, Tstat, hoses) that in the winter my car would hardly ever warm up enough. I blocked off the radiator to help it get up to good operating temperatures. In fact, I do this onmy old 1991 Explorer now too, but that's because I'm too lazy to fix a stuck T-stat.

5) Recheck your valves. I've had that happen to. I adjusted my valves once, then a week later for some reason they were out of whack.

Now that I think about it, try the cardboard thing first. For some reason, my gut says your engine temps may be linked in some way to the performance issues you are having.

Slade
 
I tried the carboard before. I ended up covering well over 50% of the radiator (at the rad itself, not the grille) and it made a 5 degree difference at higher speeds. Last winter the heater worked great.
 
This sounds a lot like the two times my coil died. At first it wold run great, but as the engine, and consequently the coil, got hot it would start to run worse and worse at high rpms. Then the sputter point would get lower and lower (in terms of revs), until it died. Park it a while and it would start right up, but then start to sputter over a certain rpm. that rpm would get lower and ower until I couldn't drive any more. Park it a while, starts up again fine...etc, etc.

I eventually noticed my coil was leaking oil and, sure enough, was shot. Same thing happened twice. Now I have a DUI. Yipee!
 
I don't know if this would change anything, but right now I have an epoxy filled coil in the car. I have an oil filled unit on the shelf though.
 
Try swapping the coil out.

If that doesn't work, check your air gap on the Pertronix. There is also an outside possibility that your Pertronix has suddenly crapped out. It does happen from time to time. If you have the old points and condensor unit, try to reinstall them and see if that helps.

edit: the more I read, the more it points to an ignition problem of some sort. usually when something goes bad all of a sudden and is erratic it tends to be electrical/electronic

Slade
 
blueroo-

This may seem odd to some who have never experienced it,but in 20-40 degree weather with high humidity ice can form in the venturi of the carb while driving. It is the moisture in the air freezing in the low-pressure area created at the carb and it can build up enough to choke off the venturi and feel like a governor while also making it run very rich. Many cars have a pre-heater tube from the air cleaner snorkel to a shielded area around the exh manifold to provide warmed air to prevent this,but most of our sixes don't. A sure diagnosis is to pull off the road when it begins happening,shut off the engine and let it sit for 3-5 minutes and re-start it. If it is ok then,you have an icing problem. When the weather dries out or warms up it will go away,but meanwhile some fuel treatment (like "HEET" brand) in the fuel can help a bit,but the real fix is an air cleaner that gets its air from the exh manifold area where it is warm. Anything you can do to get warmer air to the carb will help.

Terry
 
thats why I asked about the temp....that and maybe some ice blockage in rad
 
No points, dang. I've heard that Pertronix units can be flakey, my next thought was going to be coil, until I read Terry's post - carb icing? not much of a problem here in Texas.. :roll: ..but sounds like that's it.

Water in the gas will do just that - and Heet or rubbing alcohol in the gas will absorb the water and carry it on through the engine. Glad to hear that it's better!

I'd still be tempted to swap out the coil and double-check the ignitor, just in case...
 
blueroo":3iiehymy said:
...Yesterday we got our first real snow...

... There seemed to be water on top of the carb, around the vent valve rod, etc....
Click to expand...

You had carburetor ice, mate :cry:
Joe
 
Ok, thank you to everyone who offered their 2 cents. I've been driving the car for a bit now at all different speeds and it seems to be solved. Thanks again.
 
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