Dude's my dart died yesterday.

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cudaspaz

cudaspaz

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It hiccupped once at a level spot after the crest of a large hill then died.
I remember shifting into second because the moron in front of me was taking his good old SUnday drive snail crawl up this big hill and I was really hoping to get a run for it.
When I shifted into third and the hill leveled out, it ran fine for about 200 feet, then, blump... dead.

I spent countless hours yesterday on the side of the road pissing with it.

I even had a guy with a 67 bright red convertible coronet, or GTX beep as he gunned on by.

I finally got it going when I found a broken wire at the points that goes from the points to the coil.
Now I don't know if this wire broke while I was pissing around in there or if it was the cause of it all, but that wire being fixed and the car still running poorly leads me to believe I have another issue.
Yes, I double checked my firing order against the repair manual.

By this time the cyllinders were washed down with gas and I had no compression so I dumped some oil in the spark plug holes and she fired up, but ran really crappy.

I put a new coil, dist cap, rotor, set of points and condenser in and adjusted them about a million times before I got it to a point where it ran good enough to drive it, but something is still seriously screwed up.
Yeah, I threw all my spare parts at it, and I played with the timing by feel to see if I could smooth it out any better with no luck.

I don't know if my leaky old carb finally bit the dust too, or I jumped time or what, but I changed the oil today thinking my gasoline infested oil was giving me bad compression but it did nothing to help, but the grating sound went away that I was hearing earlier.

I gotta get a timing light on it and start from there, and it may give me an excuse to finally rebuild the carb and install a petronics ignition kit.

Fudge!!!

This sucks!

Man, I just told my daughter, who was with me, that the car runs so nice, then whaam!....dead.
 
That sucks. Nice of the fellow Mopar guy to drive by. I bet if you were in a B or E body he would have stopped.
 
Adam thats cold. My bet is a timing chain ,sounds just like my Duster. Do a compression check.
 
When cranking,

pull the breather, see if rockers are moving

pull dist cap and make sure rotor is turning. The nylon gear likes to bite the biscuit

Check to make sure you have power at the coil during both run and start. If not check ballast and bulkhead connections
 
yeah but if the chain isnt broken, just jumped a tooth valve assembly will still move.
 
If you know the carb is crappy from what you stated. Have you checked to make sure it's not puking down the intake and loading it up. Stuck float, maybe some krap in the needle and seat, etc.. might be worth the carb kit to break it down, you had planned on it anyway correct?
 
AdamR said:
That sucks. Nice of the fellow Mopar guy to drive by. I bet if you were in a B or E body he would have stopped.
Click to expand...

Not always true, but very likely.I think the so called "know it all" guys coincidently drive E and B bodies, but not all, like our friend, Daredevil.But with that said, I get tired of having rude comments from these numbers matching guys acting like they know everything and sometimes negatively putting down my ride and dissing the very strong 318 in my duster that would probably clean half of their cars. Its uncalled for. I get very angry when some arrogant person like that insults my mopar knowledge, also because I am a young guy. Fact is, I have outwitted a lot of them many times. So for that, I sympathize with Adam.

Anyways, sorry for the off topic rant.

This does have the doings of a bad timing gear, possibly a few teeth on the nylon gear were sheered after you got off of the gas on that hard romp. Is this a 318? Stock or near stock engine? Pull the cap and watch the rotor as you hand turn the crank to check the time.

With that said, you said the motor fired up after you repaired the coil wire. I would go over that again and check it. Something sounds awry there. Check the output of all of the wires between the distributor and the coil. Let us know if you need anything else.:thumrigh:
 
I have a 69 barracuda and a 72 swinger so im on both sides of the fence.I cut my teeth on a bodys,72 teen duster that ran 8.20 1/8s all motor. Untied many a bowtie with that car.
 
Thanks guys.

It's a 198/6, three on the tree.

I did notice the see through fuel filter looked a little dirty when I first broke down so I removed it and blew it out.

The fuel in it now looks very clean so i may have sloshed up some sludge in the fuel tank going up that big hill and it got sucked into the carb once I leveled off.( one scenario).

The engine seems to have a grating sound when I gas it at lower rpm, but the sound went away substantially when I changed the oil.

I guess a sloppy timing chain could give you a raking noise right?
So it may have jumped time too.

It ran home like I had a dead cyllinder and bucked every now and then espeacially under lower cruising loads, but ran better with more constant load, especially in third gear.

So timing and or carb/fuel seems to be my thoughts as well.

I will most likely not do anything else to it till this weekend so I will let y'all know what I find.

Maybe a good time to get a freaking killer crate motor and be done with it?????
 
Well, to further fuel the hijack, the only guys that stopped were two teenage kids in a ratty el' camino.
They offered tools and whatever assistance but left when they saw I had what I needed, but at least they stopped.

I also had a young couple stop and give me a ride to a gas station up the street in their Honda.

I must have had at least ten muscle cars go by, and the guy in the B-body vert actually gunned it after he beeped as if to say "Mine runs good sucker."

Oh well, maybe karma caught up to him down the road.

I hope I see him at a later date at some local car show.

I'll be sure to "Compliment" him on his car and let him know his car looks better sitting here than it does driving by when I was broke down.
 
cudaspaz said:
I must have had at least ten muscle cars go by, and the guy in the B-body vert actually gunned it after he beeped as if to say "Mine runs good sucker."
Click to expand...

I'd have to guess that he bought that car and didn't build it. Chances are he didn't have any tools, and wouldn't know what to do with them even if he did, and most likely would have bored you with tales of his friends Boss Hemi '68 472 cubic inch Camaro with a factory 5-speed and dealer installed slicks.

On the other hand, good on the kids in the 'Camino and the couple in the Honda.
 
I would definately look into the carb a bit more. I just had similar issues with my 81 truck, there is a post in the /6 forum. But long story I had one cylinder misfiring, I couldnt figure it out. Had good comp. all the ignition parts were new and I had no indications of faulty valve train. It turned out to be a vacuum line sucking raw fuel into the #6 intake port from the bowl vent. Chances are, you dont have the identical issue since you probley dont have vacuum lines like my truck (everywhere) but if the carb is steady pouring fuel when its not needed, then it very well could be the issue.
My truck acted very similar,it would barely idle, but it got better as you increased RPMs, which now makes sence, because the engine was able to burn it easier at a higher RPM.
Anyhow just my 2 cents. Hope ya figure it out
 
Thanks for the imput.

Yeah, I definitely don't have much in the vacuum line department.

I really hope to have it back on the road soon.
 
ramcharger said:
Chances are he didn't have any tools, and wouldn't know what to do with them even if he did, and most likely would have bored you with tales of his friends Boss Hemi '68 472 cubic inch Camaro with a factory 5-speed and dealer installed slicks.
Click to expand...

Correction: Only the 1969 models were available with the Dealer Installed Slicks...Check the literature...

:read2:
Ray
 
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