It's always when your SO GODDAMN close little things are gonna hitch you in the end. I'm so close to getting my Fleetline running, but I've got a few little things holding me back. First thing is this motor. Chevy 194, came out of a Nova "running" but they always say that shit. New points, cap, wires, rotor, plugs, coil, everything. Rebuilt the carb carefully. Checked the timing. I checked the tab, got her top dead center, and the rotor is right where it should be, firing on number 1. But she's still not running. I can get it, when I poor a lot of starting fluid in the carb, to run, but it's brief and she only stays alive if i'm on the gas and reving it over and over, will not idle. Got the mixture screw and a half in. I did all my homework looking up how to tune this, and I'm getting nothing. I've got the very back bolt missing out of the intake, the thread is fucked so I can't get one in there. The others are bolted down hard, but could I still be getting in air there and keeping it from running. I got the motor cheap so I don't mind tossing it for another, but I'd like to figure this out. Any help would be great. Thanks!
Could be a vacuum leak. Could also be a worn out distributor; the aluminum housing distributors in the early 194-230-250s would wear out and end up with lots of side play, varying the dwell as they wallowed back and forth.
I vote dizzy. Put a HEI in there and be done. The 73/ early 74 model had a seperate coil and doesn't look quite so bulky as the later models
Try resetting idle mixture screw to 2 turns out from bottom. Add some more to idle speed screw. Turn dist. counter clockwise a little to add some more initial timing. Seems like it sould run if you are getting fuel pressure and timing is on. Sure you have good compression? A small vacuum leak should not be that big of a deal. Good luck.
Dizzy is good, I checked. Smashed down the bolts on the intake... I do have the last one stripped like I said, but would just one bolt make enough difference to have it run that shitty? The dizz looks pretty new inside, really clean actually. But it's the ONLY thing I haven't replaced... How much work and cost would it take to pop the HEI in there?
When I bought my flat head Cadillac it ran crappy, turned out some one put the manifold gasket in upside down and had BIG air leak. Take a spray a little oil along side the intake maniford and see how bad the exhaust smokes. Traderjack