Technical Crazy things that have caused trouble on your ride!

Back in about 1967 my Dad and I put a 312 T bird Special in a 1956 Ford. Pick up. It ran great, untill one day it would drop four cylinders at anything above an idle! I took the top off the 4100 carburetor , removed the float and there was a dead spider in one of the jets! I guess he crawled in through a vent and died, then sank to the bottom of the carb and finally postsitioned himself so that his legs hung over the out side of the jet and his body plugged the jet! Crazy! Anybody beat that craziness? Lol









Bones

 

Lol. Naw, other then having almost a full bag of dogfood in my kick panel vents on my old 69gmc.

 

I had a continuing problem with a new off topic sports car years ago. The symptoms were always the same i.e., the car would act like a clogged fuel filter. After coasting to a stop the car would start right up. I replaced the filter on several occasions but the problem persisted. I finally dropped the tank and found a piece of cellophane from a cigarette package floating around.

The odd thing was that the stoppage happened three times in one day and other times it went weeks between stoppages. I guess it could have been an accident somehow but probably not.

 

Mice will do that.

 

Similar problem to the spider was in a vehicle we rebuilt for my brother about 25 or so years ago. It was a slightly OT Pontiac and had a 400 in it. Car ran great, but we kept having fuel supply issues not all that different than what you mention. I finally noticed what appeared to be larva and dirt in the fuel filter which is when we decided to drop the fuel tank and get the mud dobber nest out...

 

As a teen a bunch of us drove our cars to the race track. A buddys charger started smoking like it was rolling coal after his first pass. Babied it home and found a main jet had fallen out of the metering block on his new Holley carburetor

 

3 that come to mind this AM, #1 back in 64, 16 years old swapped a 348 tri-carb into my 57 2 door sedan, ran real good short period, burned points up, replace points/condenser, same deal again, asked at parts store, why, counter man said check ballast resistor, showed me one, I looked, car did not have one, (bought car without engine/trans) installed, fixed problem. Remember the day the man at parts counter actually knew some things. #2 10 years ago or so, went to drive my OT and throttle did not work, seemed stuck closed/idle, look see, take engine cover off, a squirrel or maybe chipmunk was storing his winter supply of pine cones, packed them tight under cover around throttle linkage. After cleaning out I kept that vehicle in the garage, had left it sitting outside for a while. #3 I have been storing a OT ragtop for 31 years ( sunny day, summer car) I purchased new, one spring got it out to drive and it ran poorly, remove air cleaner and mice had moved in, ate through the paper filter and dead bodies were in the throttle body restricting air flow, cleaned it out, installed a paper filter with some metal structure around paper, ready to jet/cruise.

 

How I hate those little buggers They seem to love electric motors my drill press is the worst. I built a 383 SBC short block for a friend who is a wheat farmer busy in the summer. So he sealed off the cylinders but not the water passages on the deck. In the fall he finished the build . After about 2 weeks the engine would run hot. I checked the radiator found brown stuff floating in it Pulled the heads and the dobber nest had desolved enough to plug the passages at the heads.

 

Had the same- stuff would drop out from odd places even though I tried to get it all out-
No longer have that car- wonder if it still gives up a piece once in a while-

 

Piece of plastic like from a bottle safety seal , plugging the fuel tank pickup that the " soc" had been blown off of . It was clear and in a corvette tank , you couldn't see it in the fuel . Found it after removing the tank .

 

That’s my main concern with this 283 we are putting in my kids pu. It was a fresh rebuild, but left to sit for years with the exhaust ports and water pump ports open. We pulled it apart and everything internal looks good, but I know there are nests inside the block and heads in the water passages still that we need to get out...

 

This was back in high school days. Came up to a stop light in my 58 Impala, pushed in the clutch, heard a pop and the clutch wouldn't release. It ball on the engine that the cross shaft pivoted on broke off. I was on the other side of town and there were a lot of stop lights and stop signs. I would shift to neutral to stop, shut the engine off, put the car in low and start the engine. I managed to make it all the way home.

My sister had a 55 Ford wagon I'd given her. She was driving it to high school. One afternoon she called and said something happened to the Ford and it wouldn't go forward but it would back up. Also there was something big and rusty hanging under the car. My dad and I drove over and found that the front crossmember had rusted in two and one of the lower control arms was down on the road at the front. Our town had a lot of old brick streets and the control arm would catch in the bricks if you tried to go forward. With a bottle jack and a length of chain we managed to get the arm off the pavement and I drove it home.

 

For the cost of a gasket set, your kid can learn (if he doesnt already know) how to inspect, clean, and re-gasket that 283. Clean everything out that is possible. It needs to be done to keep from chasing gremlins or worse when the time comes to fire it up!

But you already knew this.....

 

I had a '57 MG Magnette that would sometimes run perfect and at other times would not run at all. After several months I finally tracked it down to the wire running from the distributor terminal to the points. It was broken inside the insulation so it looked good from the outside. I finally found it when changing points for about the third time when one end of the uninsulated wire literally dropped out of the insulation onto the floor.

 

I had a 57 Chevy with 235 six and stock 1 barrel carb in high school. Coming home one day after school i nailed it and the thing kept running wide open. Got it shut off and looked for obvious linkage problems etc. Got back in, cranked it and still wide open. Took air cleaner off and looked in carb to see butterfly laying in bottom of intake. Got it home by cranking in gear for short bursts.

 

My very first ride, a 1962 Chevy pickup, I was 15 and had a learner's permit, started slipping into neutral when going around right hand turns. The first time it happened I got out, walked around to find the right reat tire sticking out about a foot! I had no idea what an axle C clip was, or a spider gear, or anything back there. I jacked it up, pushed the wheel back in and off I went. Happened on several other occasions, I ended up trading the truck for a motorcycle as is. About 5 years later I learned about axles and C clips.

 

My wife,.............no shit she hates my time with my ride. I should not put this out there but sometimes the truth is the truth.

 

How about when you go to make a left turn, and all of a sudden the motor revs at full throttle. Kill then engine,
it restarts like nothing ever happened, until you make another left turn. Found out the hard way what a broken
motor mount on the left side does. It was like a ghost had taken control, haha...

 

Back in the 70s when I was a contractor one of our subcontractors had a brand new Chevy truck that kept overheating he took it back to the dealership for number of times and they never could fix it. I was over at his shop one day and saw that brand new 454 sitting on his shop floor. I said how much do you want for that engine over there? He said get that son of a bitch out of my sight you can have it. Of course he was thinking then that was something broke inside. I think I ran a few traffic lights going back to get a truck to pick it up. Got it back home pulled the heads, and dug out what appeared to be a complete dry cleaners plastic bag stuffed into the block. Factory defect. And I got a brand new 454 for free yeehaw!!!

 

OT ride but my 14 yo son bought a field find Dodge Charger that we had a hell of a time getting to run. Good spark at #1 plug and carb squirted fuel. Finally pulled the dist. and found the rotor shaft wobbled like 75 thou. Air gap on the electonic pickup vane was only correct for # 1. A brass hammer and a dial indicator got it sorted and the engine fired right up. He's still driving it now age 30.

 

Weird things;;After getting used Henry J in early 1960 for $75 with busted first gear,at first just tried to get all working running.
But could not get the head lights to have high beam or low beam=had both all the time!
Replaced dimmer floor button,redid wiring an new light switch. Tried a lot,but finally took head light seal beam out,an put only one back in,still didn't work. Next used the other seal beam in same side,so left one now in right and nothing in left!! BOOM I had low beam and then high beam by clicking the foot switch!! So then put the old right seal beam in in the left side an back to only all high an low at the same time! WTH
Looking closely into that last seal beam bulb ,the high wire spring like element,had busted at one end,an welded it's self too low beam=feed both beam all the time.
Replaced one bad seal beam an all was fine n danny,but took me 3 days to find that.
Freaky,never seen that happen again.

 

In the late 60's I bought a 58 Bonneville from a friend who said it would not run well-quit all the time. Drove it around a bit and it would just quit --no fuel. Took tank out and found a set of US postal service keys with a tired leather tag on it. Put it back in--ran fine after that. Gave the keys to the mailman. Sold it for $600! Wish I had that one back.

 

My cousin had a International pick up, I think it was HAMB friendly, if not real close that would quit running at crazy times with no real rhythm or reason. It would just stop getting fuel. He worked on it , you know all the regular things, fuel filter, fuel pump, needle and seat, new gas cap etc, but nothing changed it. Finally, I don’t remember who, but some one figured out that the straight cut , unfiltered pick up tube was too close to the bottom of the tank and every once in a while the tank floor would rise up enough to shut off the fuel!








Bones

 

Back in the early 80's when I got my 51 Merc running for the first time since the mid 60's It would go about 4 miles and quit. First time I walked a mile to a gas station, got a gallon of gas and walked back and put the gas in and it fired right up. Put a a few bucks of gas in in it and filled the gas jug and stuck it back in the trunk. The next morning it died on the same corner that it did before and I was thinking that that 350 Buick was a real gas hog. got out and opened the shiny new vented gas cap and whoosh the air rushed into the tank and the bottom popped back out. Left the cap slightly loose, and went on to work then took the new cap back to the parts house and swapped it for another vented cap. Same thing the next morning, It took three new caps before I got one that was actually vented.
The same car would plug inline fuel filters like crazy until we dropped the tank and flushed out about five pounds of dirt, broken ketchup bottle neck and a lot of other junk.

Stuck an HEI in my slightly OT 3/4 ton and it would quit on the way to work at 03:00 in the morning on a too regular basis as the female slide terminal I had used to hook it up would slide just enough so it lost contact, usually when it was raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock. getting the right end for the Hei fixed that.

Back in the 70's I dropped the tank on a customer's car that would quit while going down the road and then fire up and go again and it had a full sheet of notebook paper in the tank that someone had probably used as a funnel to put gas in with when they ran out at some time.

 

My son inlaw Had a Pontiac v8 it would run and almost die out and run again over and over . Turned out it was the wire leading to the points. The car would start and idle the vacuum advance would move the advance plate and the wire would lose contact inside and it and would die and then the vacuum would be gone and the plate would go back while the engine was still turning and run until it got vacuum and do it again.

 

Yup... the teeniest tiniest little light green colored seed blocking a jet. How does stuff like that get in there?

A missing rubber grommet, wire going through the hole on the bottom of the distributor was bared and intermittently grounding. Stalled a bunch of times before I figured it out.

 

I usually just keep a bag of chips around to snack on, but we're all different

 

One that had me chasing it for a long time was on a somewhat ot car with a sbc.
Step in the gas or down shift,anything that would torque the mounts and it would stall,
But pop it in neutral and she would fire up and run until you got into it again.
Kept me driving the limit and avoiding tickets but sure did piss me off!!!!!
Finally found it, a small ground wire behind the distributor bolted to the fire wall, was just a bit to short and the wire broke but the insulation did not, so driving “normal kept enough continuity to keep the circuit grounded, kick it in the guts, the wire opened and no ground. Funny in the end but man it drove me nuts for a while.

There’s more..... need to think.

 

Don’t know about everybody else but I’m usually the culprit.

 

A buddy's 64 Chevy pickup with a straight 6 got to where it would die turning right but ran fine turning left or going straight. We found all but one screw holding the carb body to the throttle plate were gone. If you turned right, the body would tip over enough to suck air and die. The one screw would keep it on any other time. It idled smooth as glass.