Engine sputtering at about 65

nm9stheham said

Just be aware that at 18-20 initial timing and a stock distributor, your total timing when the mechanical advance is full in at 2500-3000 RPM will be around 40 degrees, and you will be flirting with detonation and piston damage if that happens. That is why I advised starting at 10 degrees advance or thereabouts... to keep you out of trouble. It may idle nicely with a lot of initial timing advance, but you have to look at all aspects of what is going on.

Yes, is can be a bit frustrating going back and forth between systems, but it will pay off in the long run to go through them all, sounds like this car has been neglected for a long time.

And, I agree with the statements on the fuel tanks... until you pull it a clean it out, you may continue to have fuel related issues and crud showing up in the carb. That type of tank clean is SOP for these cars.

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Fuel tank is actually something I had already put on the list to purchase. Not sure when it will actually get purchased, but I agree for a 50 plus year old car, that's definitely an automatic, I may be placing more stock in a fuel filter to stop the garbage from getting to the carb than I should but hopefully it saves me until the tank job is ready. I'll be back under the car today with more suspension issues so I'll follow the fuel line back to the tank and inspect all that line. I'll replace that if I'm going through the effort of swapping the tank also.

My priorities right now have been sorting out this fuel/spark issue and the electric in this gar is a total disaster so I wanted to tackle that next, at the moment, I have an oil pressure gauge working which is an aftermarket one under the dash and the original alternator gauge in the dash shows movement but I'm not sure it's accurate. Apart from that I have no dashboard, no lights, no warning lights, nothing. The aftermarket radio has power so my guess is that they robbed something for power instead of running proper power for the radio. Actually check that I also have turn signal indicators in the dash, but that's about it unfortunately.

The suspension is a priority also, its about 80 percent done, did the upper control arms, need to do the lowers and the front end will be buttoned up. The fuel is a priority but I need electrical and suspension also.

To address the original part though, I'll back it down to 12 to 14 initial and go from there.