Vaccuum nightmare

I'm new to the forums and new to Fords so please bear with me. I have a 1980 Mercury Monarch 250/C4 pretty much all stock. As far as i know the car was owned by an old woman and only driven to church. It has 100k original miles and even the vinyl roof is perfect! It pretty much runs like brand new at idle. No blow by or leaks, not a twitch!

Now the bad and the ugly, the person i bought it from had it only for a short time and bought it as "cheap transportation". Well he didn't know anything about cars and had it serviced at a shop that knew even less than he did. When I bought the car he said that the shop had "adjusted" something to keep it from stalling.

well the car pinged like crazy so obviously the timing had been advanced.it is also missing the soleniod on the carb the drops the idle to keep it from dieseling when you turn it off. i bought it and took it home figuring it would be an easy fix and just needed all of the basic adjustments. Well the car is a vaccuum line nightmare and the emissions sticker is gone so I have no idea where any of them should go.

Now someone has been in there and rearranged stuff because some lines were just going in circles and both the distributor and EGR valve were not connected. Does anyone have any info on where to begin with this nightmare? I really like the car because it runs perfect but once you get it going all the misadjusted things keep it from running right.

It also has issues with turning off,it diesels if i turn it off in park and sometimes even if i leave it in gear. I have checked with ford dealers and bought every book i can find and there is no information at all on the vaccuum lines. if i could hook them all up where they need to go then i could try to see if all of the little vaccuum diaphragms work or not. It seems that there were very few of these cars with the 250 in 1980 because it is hard to even find this car listed with the 6 cylinder.

At this point it is just one huge mess on a car that would otherwise probably run perfect! OR maybe someone would have suggestions as to how i can remove all of the emissions items since that is not much of an issue where i live and date the system back to an older year's setup. I really would hate to junk a perfectly good vehicle but at this point it is not driveable and just isnt doing much for me aside from offering me parts for another car. I'm a GM guy and totally lost here. I appreciate any help you guys have to offer and sorry for the extra long post.

The Haynes manual usually have diagrams. I got mine at a used book store, but the library might be worth a browse.
A stock 1980 could be a vacuum nightmare. I have a 78 and fortunately the previous owners removed everything except the EGR valve setup.
You could start with removing the catalytic converter system, which might be part of the exhaust manifold (and is probably plugged anyway).
And the thermactor system.

There are also vacuum and wiring manuals available for all models. I couldn't find one for your specific model, but they look like this:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/1979-Ford-LTD-Mercur ... dZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Haynes-Owners-Worksh ... dZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.ca/FORD-GRANADA-Service ... dZViewItem

I can't help with the specific hose routing, but those lack of lines to the distributor and EGR definately would cause pinging. The EGR dilutes the the gas charge and slows down the combustion. When operating properly, the EGR system requires more ignition advance to get it to fire. The distributor vacuum advance cannister likey has a nipple or fitting for both the spark advance and spark retard.
Doug

welcome to the forum, monarch80.

ford had two different vacuum setups for the 1980 granada and monarch equipped with the 250ci engine and auto transmission; calibration #0-9A R0 and #0-29A R0, both federal standards (no calif. calibr.)
Both are virtually snake nests.

If you have access to a digital camera, a couple pictures would be quite helpful since your emissions decal and engine code label are gone.
digital photos can be uploaded and linked online at photobucket or imageshack for free.

Depending on your location you will have a smog test to pass, so simply gutting everything until you have a basic clean `69 setup will be out of question. Still, I'd recommend keeping only the necessary parts functional that are needed to let it pass emissions testing in your area.

Thanks alot for the suggestions, i will try my best to get some pics up here as soon as i can. i was working on the brakes today and trying to get an exhaust which seems to not be available anymore. i need the exhaust to be good to pass inspection. the car is currently not pinging even with the egr disconnected but it does not have much power at all.i tried my best to attempt to adjust the timing and idle speed but i don't think i am even close although it starts right up.i do have the distributor hooked up for vaccuum advance and i think that is actually correct but i dont know if the vaccuum lines before that are hooked up correctly. if i do try to drive it around a little bit it is pretty slow and when i park it and turn it off i can feel the coolant boiling slightly in the upper hose. so i dont drive it. i have all of the books u can buy as far as service manuals and such but none of them list ANYTHING for a 6 cylinder in 1980 just tons of diagrams for the 2 v-8 models or stuff for a 79 or 81 monarch. i did find some diagrams for a 1980 200 in a different vehicle but i dont know if that would be similar or not. i will see what information i can give you guys. i do have an emissions sticker on the underside of the hood so that may help you but i seem to be missing a sticker the goes on the top radiator support on the passenger's side. i can see where the adhesive was but no sticker. i thought this may have been a map of the vaccuum lines but not sure since i am used to the way GM does these things. GM cars usually have a sticker with the vaccuum line map under the hood somewhere. i will take some pics and see if that helps out at all. thanks again for all your help, i'm trying my best to get this car running again the way it should.

the joys of smog-era equipment! You have already discovered lack of power, probably bad gas mileage too. That was part of the package back in the day before they discarded carburetors altogether and switched to fuel injection.

If you want to get this heap back to homerun condition, start with a leakdown test and oil change, then inspect your carburetor and choke assembly. make sure all the vacuum control switches are working as supposed to (i.e. no cracked plastic housing, no crud and dirt blocking any passages).
Next, clean all your vacuum hoses and check if they´re still up to par. When in doubt, invest in some new hoses.

Heart of the system usually is the EGR with its load control valve (somewhere in front of the carb) and vacuum control valve (left to thermostat housing), and the air pump and bypass valve.

Then you have additional vacuum switches, reservoirs, control and delay valves and climate modulators.

I´m virtually starving to see a pic of an unmolested 1980 250 with (most of) its emissions cr*p still in place.

I have found the vacuum schematic drawing for a 1980 250ci, btw. It really is quite schematic...



more later

I have a 1982 chevy 6cyl pickup.Its one of the last models before computers and all that junk works with vacum.There are hoses everywhere.Pull one off or plug it in wrong spot and engine goes haywire.Fortunatly all mine are still hooked up.Hope your car does not have the infamous carb with wires in it, they are a real nightmare.My dad had one of those on a 1984 F150 with 300 6cyl.

saltwaterfalcon1960":yotsyhm3 said:

Hope your car does not have the infamous carb with wires in it, they are a real nightmare.My dad had one of those on a 1984 F150 with 300 6cyl.

Click to expand...

He shouldn´t; in 1980, the only engine Ford put a feedback carb on was a 2300cc fourbanger calibrated to meet california standards.
Then again, you never know what some ford executive was up to, 26 years ago. They had a whole bunch of design changes.
:roll:

new catalytic converters in line should make the car pass smog regardless of the vacuum stuff. The air pump will also help.

First, don't disable the EGR. The carb is calibrated to expect the EGR to lean it out in the midrange, and running w/o EGR will give low MPG and rough idle after hiway speeds, then idling.

Get an idle solenoid from a junkyard. It connects to the IGNITION circuit.

Easiest quick-fix for the EGR without lots of hoses: connect the EGR valve to the spark port vacuum. The long way involves connecting it to the EGR "venturi" port on the carb, thru a delay valve, to a vacuum switch that switches manifold vacuum to the EGR valve, but only when warmed up (i.e., thru a PVS valve on the thermostat housing or nearby). Lots of hoses.

If the electric choke is not working, it may be due to the (missing?) steel pipe from the exhaust manifold that goes into the choke chamber to warm it up. Without that, it will take 20 minutes for the choke to pull off. Install the pipe or a manual choke.

The distributor gets no vacuum after warmup in stock setup. It gets manifold vacuum via the PVS valve when cold or overheated. Bypassing all this with one hose to spark port vacuum will improve MPG and lower summer engine heat.