Whats up everybody, just got my girlfriends 51 chevy business coupe running, it had been sitting for about a year.. It starts up and idles, revs, drives fine(short trips), BUT I tried to drive it to work the other day(25miles) and it kept dying on me. I ran fine for the first few miles or so and then it would loose power while driving and stall. I pulled over, looked around the engine, couldnt see anything wrong, started her back up and it would drive fine for 30 sec or a min then same thing, die. I felt the fuel pump(6V electriec pump in engine bay) And its hotter than hell, could this be the problem? The car has been converted to 12V. However there is a little ceramic block on the firewall that the fuel pump wires go to, could this be a voltage reducer? One other thing I thought it could be is the ignition coil, because it too is 6volt. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Well first the pump should be back at the tank,electric pumps don't suck well they are made to push. Those voltage reducers don't work all that well you may have 4 volts at the pump or maybe 8. Put a 12 volt pump on it back at the tank mounted about even with the bottom of the tank. The pump getting that hot is probably the problem. The coil if 6 volt will not live long on 12V . Get the resistor made for iginion and put between switch and coil.
John====I think your advice is dead on. I love reading your posts. It's like being taught by a professor of mechanics. Thanks for keeping us educated. Orest
Ok guys, thanks for the advice, this forum has been very helpful! Well, here is the latest, I went ahead and got a 12v fuel pump (4-7 psi) and hooked it up near the fuel tank, she started right up, rock solid idle, everything was looking up so I tried to take her to work again today and she made it almost all the way there and then it happened again, same symptoms as before, like its running out of gas and then dies. It happened right as I started up a big hill, I dont know if it might have something to do with hills? Anyhow, I pulled over, checked everything out, looked ok and she started right up and I drove off. On the way home, its started happening much sooner, like within a few miles of driving. I had to keep pulling over and waiting for her to cool off a bit and she would let me drive for a min. or two and then start dying. It was much hotter out on the way home. I think something is heating up and failing but im not sure what. This problem only seems to happen on the freeway, when she is at high revs for a while. Around town, she is fine. Right now mounting the ignition coil away from the engine, and looking over everything so she is all torn apart, here are some pics, lemmy know if you see anything wrong, THANKS!!!
Did you replace the gas cap? It probably requires a vented cap and you may have the wrong one on there or the vent has become blocked. The correct cap aught to be Stant part no. 10623/regular, 10491/locking. Stant being the most common brand. If it isn't the cap, you may have a lot of debris in the tank, prematurely clogging the filter and/or a partially blocked pickup tube.
I had a '50 Chev that did the same thing. Turned out to be a mouse in the tank, preserved by the fuel, and his little corpse would get sucked up against the fuel pickup tube, the car would die. After few minutes, it'd drift away, and fire right up. Perplexing problem untill we got that figured out.
Thanks for the replies, all very good advice, Well it gets more interesting, See the attached photos, the guys who changed the engine from 216 to 235 did some "custom" work on the exhaust manifold. There is an extra pipe welded to the manifold and they removed the flapper valve that circulated exhaust gas around the intake manifold. so from what I can tell, Its probably getting exhaust gasses circulated around the intake manifold all the time instead of only when cold like it was designed. Does this seem like it could be causing my problems?
Unless you want shrapnel and hot oil everywhere get rid of that 6 volt coil! I had one explode on 12 volts and it is not a pretty sight. V/8
Ditto with what some others have said. Probably shit in your tank. Went through this exact thing with my Merc this weekend, getting it running after sitting for a long time. Had it running perfect... stopped to fill up, started heading up a hill and she died. Pulled the air cleaner off, pumped it and just spit a little gas. Pulled the dome off the filter... shit everywhere. Cleared it out... clogged up another few miles down the road. Tank was sitting half full for too long and the combination of filling it up and sloshing it up the hill knocked all that crap loose. Pulling the tank and getting it stripped down and sealed.
You definitely need a clear plastic or glass inline fuel filter. That way you'll know if it's running dry or not. The removed flapper shouldn't be a problem, the water heated intakes don't have a thermostat on them. You can remove the top of the carb and check the floats without pulling the whole carb. Either that photo is a weird angle, or that is the wildest alternator mounting I've seen on a 235??
That is home made dual exhaust, and is not the cause of your problem. get a clear filter before, and a steel one after the pump. part numbers 33003 and 33033, respectively.
I see your problem...masking tape on the carb. Seriously though, I had similar problems. Rebuilt the carb, changed fuel filter and fuel pump and it kept randomly dying out. Turned out to be a crapped out tank. By the way, you might want to run an inline fuel pressure regulator even with that low psi pump. Stock carbs run off a steady 3-3.5 psi.
Thanks for all the input, you guys are a huge help in getting this thing running. I am going to rebuild the carb today, an old timer told me that I probably have a bad accelerator pump. I worked on the car last weekend, moved the coil off the block,rigged up a cool air intake, thinking that heat was the problem, but it still is running like shit. I am only able to give it a little throttle before it starts to surge, and the problem seems to get worse the longer I drive it. So off to the parts store, I will let yall know how the carb rebuild goes and if it fixes my problem.
It works!!! it runs like a champ!!! I got a carb rebuild kit and changed out the accelerator pump and some other little parts, put it back on and the problem is gone! it runs perfect!!! Thank you all so much for your help, I will post some pics...
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