Fixed a few things here and there however, when accelerating from a dead stop it tends to bog down and 9 times out of 10 completely dies. I've learned to get around it by holding my foot on the break and giving it some gas to raise the rpm's then just feathering out of it like I would if it was a manual going into first. The previous owner said he tried to figure it out, even went through the carburetor and that didn't seem to be where the issue was. ( he also mentioned his mechanic skills were sub-par) to me it seems to be some sort of a fuel problem but I know less than the last guy. It will idle just fine but as soon as you touch the gas down it goes.
^^^ This. Remove air cleaner with engine off. Look down throat of carb and open throttle by hand. As soon as the throttle begins to open you should see a small stream of fuel spray into the throttle bore. If things are out of adjustment it may not begin spraying until the throttle is half way open, which is too late to do any good. Or it may not be working at all...
Another line of inquiry...you need some ignition advance as engine comes off idle and goes to work. This is going to be hard to observe directly (best way would be to give your wife a timing light and duct-tape her to the fender, which might generate more problems than it would dignose). To test that, mark your distributor so you can get back to your starting point easily. Then advance it somewhere in the 5-10 degree area by guess or by timing light and drive test it briefly. If this does good, problem can then be properly diagnosed and fixed. On the gas side...after test above, see if you can rig a temporary manual choke by attaching a length of wire and running it into car. Go through the stumble zone over and over, pulling the choke wire out a bit more each time, and see if this crude enrichment does anything for you...again, leading to proper diagnosis and repair. Your question implies qutomatic trans...is that right?
I know this should go without saying, but have you checked the fuel filter? If that's clogged it'll idle, but will bog down and die when you try to get going.
Yes it is an automatic trans. And I'll do more investigating this weekend to see if I can narrow things down a bit more.
Is your coil wired backwards? I heard somewhere they will work, but very weakly when backwards. Try a different coil, I have seen them fail and act like a fuel problem.
It took me A little longer than I thought to do a bit of investigation. The fuel pump is fine. We did have to replace the battery this weekend which I know has nothing to do with this however I did notice a decent size transmission leak. Now I'm going to risk sounding like a complete idiot here but where in the hell is the dipstick to check The transmission fluid. It is a three speed automatic (merc-o-matic)
The 52 transmission is checked by opening a small panel in the floor pan. There is a knob with a short dip stick on it. 1953 was the first year for the dip stick to be under the hood. Hope this helps. Eddie
Sounds like you have an 8ba engine. If you are running the original distributor chances are very high your advance is sub par or totally inoperable. Those distributors are junk and must be given the naval flotation test.