I've had minor problems before but never bad enough to leave it on the side of the road. My 53 shit out on me this morning. I'm running two carter YF carbs and both have given me a lot of problems recently. They ran for about a year, very well, very stable, but over the past week they've been spitting raw fuel in the mix and leaking a little. I've adjusted (and even changed out) the floats so that the fuel is barely even on the accelerator pump and turned my electric pump on and no leaking. Yet when it's trying to run, or trying to start, both are pouring all over the place. I tried damn hard to get it running good enough to get back home but she won’t have it. It spins over and starts for a few revolutions then quits again and that’s only if I keep the pedal to the floor and gas spitting all over the place. I’m also getting some backfire out of the carbs as it dies. Not really backfires but spits of compression coming back through a carb and a puff of vapor. I need to just get it home then I’m going to ditch those carbs and do one of three things: Make an aluminum adapter to mount a 4bbl in the middle of my fenton dual intake. (yee haw a sideways carburetor!) Run 2 2bbl carbs Buy 2 new Rochester BC’s and run those. Advice advice advice. I’m looking for your advice on everything, obvious or not, just gotta think of everything it could be so when I go back out to it, I can get it back on the road and back home. I have it parked at a place that doesn’t open till this evening so I have several hours before it’s covered in hand prints, boob prints, and scratches. Well.. the boob prints aren’t so bad. What's it sound like to you?
You sure its Carburation? check your COil. i heard a statistig once, 90% of all carburation problems are electrical or ignition.
Have you done it before? Ya mind offering some info on it? I've had 1bbl and I've had 4, but never 2 so I know nothing about them. Which ones should I buy? If you can help me out in buying the right 2bbl's I can figure out the rest I'm sure. You could be right, this is why I'm asking for every bit of advice anyone can give. I didn't think about that one, I'll take one of my spare coils and see if that does the trick. I blew out my MSD blaster coil 2 and put a very very old coil back on it. I know it's tired and the MSD 6AL has gotta be hard on it.
Yeah, but why would his carbs be leakin? I think the first suggestion (if feasible) would be the quickest way to get it safely home to figure out just what the heck is goin' on. Good luck.
If it is sneezing through the carbs, I would wonder if the timing chain slipped. This is just a guess though. Check the timing to make sure it is spot on and then go from there.
Gear on gear, no slippage there but thanks for the suggestion. I'll add timing to the list of things to check. Maybe the distributor got bumped or something but it made it over 3 miles before it crapped out so I don't know. I thought of that too but it could be more than one problem. Possibly the coil is keeping it from running and the floats are just off again. It's crazy because I have the levels set so it's BARELY up to the accelerator pump yet when I try to turn it over, the floats let in a ton of fuel and it goes everywhere. I even pulled the tops off of both carbs, pulled the line off of my vacuum wipers and used it to suck out the fuel in the bowls.. set the floats lower, then turned on my electric pump and waited awhile.. pulled the tops back off and the levels were just enough to saturate the accelerator pump's diaphragm. I put the tops back on and turn it over, then gas goes everywhere on both of them and the bowls are full again.
I had a problem with mine doing almost the same thing. I kept finding tiny bits of sand in the needle. I think I ran 3 filters on mine. And, I carried alot of spare filters. You might try cleaning out the tank and install a filter the will catch really small stuff.
My friend's '54 exhibited similar problems, backfiring through the carb, running poorly...his carb keep sucking the flange gasket into the carb. Turns out his dizzy gear was partially stripped...so it was an ignition issue after all. Bryan
If its farting thru the carbs, it sounds like it lost cam timing. I realise its gear driven, but if its the old pressboard gears they strip. Turn the motor over to TDC on #1, pop the distributer cap, and see if the rotor lines up or close to the #1 wire on the cap. If its there, lined up, timing is good. If the electric pump has a pressure regulator in line it may have taken a shit. I f you can switch the electric pump from the dash, try this: run the pump until fuel runs over the carbs, turn pump off. Start motor, its probably way loaded up at this point. See if it cleans out without the pump. If it does you got it made. Fire it up, put it in gear and start driving. When it starts to run out of fuel, cycle the pump for a few seconds, or until it starts to run over, and shut the pump back off. You are now a manual needle and seat, get the bitch home. Good luck and let us know what you find. Mike.
The guys talkin' about sand/grit in the carb are likely right. I've had it happen just as you described it. Only running one rochester though. And when floored it runs, but with gas spewing everywhere right .Yep. I would give the carbs a quick teardown and add a filter or two. Then hopefully pull the tank and clean it out (if it's never been done). I bet that solves it. Worked for me. Twice. silas
I have the same problem with a Autolite 4100 4 barrel exactly as you describe. The same carb used to work fine with no problems. I have cleaned the thing beyond belief and been through it 6 times and have yet to solve the problem. So take this with a grain of salt. With that said, here is what I have done so far that might give you some ideas to check. All of them could be contributing though some of them are a reach. NEW floats (I was able to confirm mine were leaky) NEW needle valves and seats (came with the rebuild kit) Cleaned and blew out several times New fuel pump FP regulator set down to 2.5 lbs Several other things specific to my carb. A couple of ideas I have that is different than when I used to drive the car. The car drove fine, but I decided to put an aluminum intake on it. (66 390 Ford). I also changed the Ford fuel filter with one of those glass see-through kinds. I have three theories. My carb is getting "heat soak" from the aluminum manifold causing the gas to boil and over coming the floats. I might need to use a phenolic spacer of some kind. or the fuel filter, which I have since learned does not filter well, might be letting trash in and it occasionally interferes with the needle valves. and the rubber fuel line that looks new on the outside might be breaking down internally and the filter is not catching it. This could be occurring in the line between the filter and the carb too. I plan to go back with the Ford style filter mounted directly to the carb. Its a paper filter and much more restrictive.
The cam gear is aluminum and new, less than 2,000 miles on it. The crank gear is steel, same on it, less than 2,000 miles on it. Good idea, but my pump is wired up to the ignition so I'll needa take a spare switch and wire it up but that would only take a few minutes. I have my old flame thrower switch still under the dash so I can use it. When I said it turns over for a few revolutions, I meant it runs, actually starts and runs but then dies because of what seems a lack of fuel or a very off mixture. I believe the timing is good but will not rule it out, I'll definately check it. I've had a bit of a leak coming from my timing cover since the rebuild (I didn't have any spray sealer) so I've been meaning to pull that thing to reseal it. I only have one filter at the moment, and it's right at the tank just before the electric pump. I'll swap that out and add another before the carbs or maybe one before each carb once I get it back home. I've built these two carbs with parts from about a dozen other carbs to get them perfect. Out of all the times I've taken them apart since then I've never really checked the jets to see if they have funk in them. Everything looks pretty clean so I never bothered but I'll check that too when I get back out there. I'll check it when I check the timing issues. I'll yank the distributor and check the gear.
I had some similer problems with my six. Turned out to be a bad condenser on my duel point. Stuck an old one on it and drove it home! Good Luck!!
the sneezing thing indicates ignition trouble, or that it's not getting enough fuel. since it's getting plenty of fuel, look for ignition trouble. on a 235 when the timing gear breaks the engine siezes, as the connecting rods will hit the camshaft. That's not the problem here.
Any more suggestions? He still hasn't been able to get her home and doesn't want to pull her with a chain. Replaced the coil, she starts, but doesn't stay running and pours gas everywhere no matter where the float levels are. Thanks guys.
okay- I am only saying this cause it has happened TWICE in the last 2 months... you said 6AL ignition, right? sounds like that dude might have let go. stranger shit has happened, I assure you.
i have seen the crank gear keyway get wallowed out,allowing the crank gear to slip,everything looked good until i pulled the gear off the crank. randy
Well here's an update. We waited till about midnight, so it stayed there from 7AM until midnight with some friends and I working on it doing everything we could to get it home. I said fuck it to the dual intake and put the single back on with a cherry new rochester carb. That stopped the leakage problem of course but now seems I have an ignition problem. I can get it to start sometimes and run but then it dies as soon as I stop turning it over. I thought it might be the ignition switch, pulled it and just used bare wires. I also went through all the 6AL troubleshooting techniques and all passed fine, so it's working well. I just don't get it at this point, it will start and run but as soon as I let off the starter solenoid it's as if I turn the key all the way to off and it dies. Went through all the wiring like crazy, nada. All new wires, all in good shape. Something is still fucked off. MSD 6AL MSD 8515 Dist (shaved down to fit in a 235) MSD blaster coil 2 (New, replaced today) Still open to ideas. I got a rollback to pick it up and bring it home so time isn't an issue anymore.
Does it have a ballast resistor for the ignition? If so replace it. If not, try running a hot wire right from the battery to the positive side of the coil. If she runs, theres a problem in the harness. If it doesn't change, problem is in the coil or dizzy. Good Luck, Mike.
-Not familiar with the distributor you have if it's a points unit check the wiring INSIDE of the distributor. If it's an electronic unit check the pickup ,loose connection, bad bushing, etc. Food for thought - back when MSD's first came out they were able to be wired so that you could trigger them with a points distributor and if the MSD unit should fail you could easily change it back over to a "standard" ignition. Kind of a nice feature. Then of coursd there's your ignition switch too! Different situation, but once I had mine do wierd stuff. Seems over the years it had burned enough carbon into the bakelite that eventually there was enough to make an intermittent connection. If you ignition is all electronic - it may be quite sensitive to this kind of thing. Another wierd electronic ignition failure I once had. I built a sort of "divorced" HEI system using a Mag Impulse distributor with a remote HEI module and remote coil (neat cause it looked like a conventional points igniton but wasn't) anyways the signal wire going from the module had become dislodged from it's "home" and touched the manifold - while driving it would die - when I crancked the motor it would bounce just enough to remove the "short" . Ranks right up there with the bad internal wire in the distributor that would allow the motor to start - but once teh vaccum advance kicked in the wire would "open" killing the engine - once not running the engine would loose vacuum and remake the connection allowing it to run again - so there it would be running, dying, running, dying.......
I don't run any resistors, the coil is internally resisted and the msd distributor has only one plug and that goes directly to the 6AL. The 6AL has specific wires that feed everything directly and it gets it juice direct from the battery. I was running 7mm wires and bumped up to 8mm. I pulled the distributor and it was fried. MSD thinks it was because I was running 7mm wires, I don't know, but I ordered a new cap and rotor, we'll see how that goes with the new wires. I appreciate the help guys, thanks a lot. I'll give another update once I get it running again.
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