69 Dart Hard to Start When Hot, Starts Fine Cold. Vapor Lock?

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Indetrucks

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Hey guys, lurker here turned member today.

My 69 Dart Slant 6 runs like a top, but has a VERY hard time starting when hot (lots of cranks). I heard it could be fuel vapor lock based on what I've read on these forums. Something about the fuel line being close to the exhaust manifold.

Is this what's happening based on this pic? If so, what is the fix?
A/C car, has been removed and choke functions correctly.
TIA !
engine.jpg


IMG_20220701_092756968_HDR.jpg
 
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Is it points or electronic ignition???

If it's electronic, check the reluctor gap in the distributor... It should be .007" with brass feeler gauge... If the gap is too big, it will cause hard starting when warm...
 
Hey guys, lurker here turned member today.

My 69 Dart Slant 6 runs like a top, but has a VERY hard time starting when hot (lots of cranks). I heard it could be fuel vapor lock based on what I've read on these forums. Something about the fuel line being close to the exhaust manifold.

Is this what's happening based on this pic? If so, what is the fix?
A/C car, has been removed and choke functions correctly.
TIA !]

Have you checked to see it you're getting fuel or possibly flooded
 
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Is it points or electronic ignition???

If it's electronic, check the reluctor gap in the distributor... It should be .007" with brass feeler gauge... If the gap is too big, it will cause hard starting when warm...

Brand new Pertronix ignition. That being said, it did the same thing when the points were in there. I will double check the gap anyway.
 
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Pull the air cleaner....do a little testing and look for a proper pump shot into the carb....any difference between hot and cold?? I know it's probably factory approved, but I'd get rid of the plastic fuel filter and go to an all metal one once you get it figured out.
 
I hate to ask this question, but how did you check the choke for proper operation?
 
I hate to ask this question, but how did you check the choke for proper operation?
Not sure if you are trolling or not... Or maybe you are being sincere as you don't know my automotive background and just want to be sure I know how a choke operates?
 
you don't know my automotive background
No one knows your background!

The question is a valid one.

Many times people assume that things are correct and don't check.

My sister once had my dad leave work and drive 30 minutes because her car would not start. He put it in park and it fired right up.

Sometimes it is the little things.
 
Not sure if you are trolling or not... Or maybe you are being sincere as you don't know my automotive background and just want to be sure I know how a choke operates?
Not trolling at all. Please don't take offense. You are new to the forum, and we get questions all the time from people who have mechanical abilities ranging from poor to expert. I probably could have worded it better, but my first thought was a choke problem, so I wanted to know how you checked it. I don't know you, or your abilities, so I wanted to ask.
 
As in post #6. When hot & you need to start the engine again, remove the air cleaner & check that you are getting a squirt of fuel from the acc pump. The first step.
 
Brand new Pertronix ignition. That being said, it did the same thing when the points were in there. I will double check the gap anyway.

90% of electrical problems are fuel related.
90% of fuel problems are electrical.

That being said, it sounds like you have a fuel issue because the problem didn't improve with an ignition "upgrade". Most likely heat soak. Today's gas is notorious for that.

You should reroute the fuel line so it goes from the fuel pump outlet straight up and over the valve cover to the carb. Also a thicker carb to manifold gasket if yours is thin will help insulate the carb. It would be helpful to post another picture without the air cleaner.

From personal experience, I first got my 225vrunning in the Fall using my perfect factory fuel lines. Everything was good until the next summer when it started to hard start. I did the SlantSixDan reroute and it's been good for the last 10,000 miles. I used 2 90 degree Holley metal fuel fittings sourced from Summit and regular modern rubber hose. Must be fuel rated because this gas eats stuff up. I'll try to find the Holley P/N.

BTW, the comment about the plastic filter refers to the fire hazard if or when it cracks.

Nice looking car! Just ignore the comments you'll get about swapping in a V8.

20220714_162400.jpg
 
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As others have said check first to be sure you really have a lack of file issue.

But this photo speaks alot to me,

Note the level of the fuel. The rest is vapor try alcohol free gas.


Screenshot_20220713-085345.png


Does this happen to yours when the engine is hot?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QMB1A18RfUEz4Hgp9
 
A long hot-cranking time, speaks to a lack of combustible fuel reaching the cylinders.
One would think that you should be able to overcome this with either; pumpshot, choke, or wet fuel level.
However; if the exhaust valves are not sealing properly, "suction" at the carb will be poor; and/or if the intake is sucking dry air between the carb and the chamber, again, suction at the carb will be poor.
Or if the brake-booster diaphragm is perforated....... or the PCV is internally busted, the hose is ill-fitting, etc.

My test is to put my hand over the carb during cranking, and have the engine try to tear it off my arm........ This action should flood the intake with fuel. As soon as you get your hand off the airhorn, the engine should begin firing. It may subsequently stall or just quit firing, and not start, but it sure won't be from lack of fuel, lol.

The other thing is this; if your throttle is too far closed, the transfer-slots will be nearly blocked off. How is the engine supposed to start in this predicament? Those transfers are your primary slow-speed fuel suppliers. The Idle mixture screw(s) are just trimmers. In this predicament (too-far-closed transfers) air, at idle, will purge the idle-wells and dry them up. No surprise that the engine will not restart.
I'm not saying your throttle is too far closed, only that it might be. This is usually a by-product of too much idle-timing. With extra timing, the idle-speed automatically increases. And so as it usually goes, your tuner just cranks the speed-screw slower. And of course, the engine is now struggling for gas, so the fix is to increase the fuel coming from the mixture-screw(s). So it idles . Whoopee. But now, as soon as you tip the throttle in, she goes rich, and stays rich on that circuit....... cuz the mixture-screws are too far open.
My starting point for the mixture screws is to idle the engine up to around cruising rpm, then close the trimmers as far as is consistent with a smooth steady rpm. After that, I slow her back down to idle, and adjust the idle smoothness with the TRANSFER fuel. If the idle-speed is too fast, I take out timing.
Sometimes I fine-tune with the wet fuel-level.
I always run my stock slanties with what most would say is baggy valve lash, namely .013/.023 @ an adjusting temperature of 75/85 air temp.
 
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With my 273, you can actually see the fuel bubbling in the filter. Tried insulating the line from the pump to the filter, and from the filter to the carb with no success.
I'd try non-alcohol fuel, but it's not available around here.
Thinking about the tri-nozzle filter and a return line to the tank....getting to old to keep fighting with this crap.
 
I have been running 87E10 in my 11.3Scr 367 since 1999, with zero percolation issues whatsoever.
But then, the daytime ambient temperature around here rarely gets to 100*F and if it does, then never more than for a few days in a row.
I'm not saying that the fuel in the bowls doesn't evaporate after a few days; that is a different issue.

Here's some help;
As you probably know, our gasoline is composed of several different compounds. The lightest of these boils at around 95*F and the heaviest at about 450*. But those numbers are at a specific ambient atmospheric pressure.
In your fuel-line with the car running, the fuel pressure should be over 3.5psi. This will increase the boiling points of all the compounds. How much I don't remember.
When you shut the car off, that pressure should remain in the line until the float drops due to evaporation, or percolation in the Hot bowl. Thus the fuel should NOT boil in the line for quite a while. If it boils as the car is running, measure the pressure between where it is boiling and the float-valve. My guess is that the valve is not closed.
But if your fuel-pump is sucking air, and it gets trapped in the filter, then that bubble of air will act like a spring because air is compressible. OR
Consider that the fuel, if it is being sucked up by a mechanical pump, that fuel may be under less than atmospheric pressure...... and so it would boil at less than 95*F. OR
anytime the fuel is required to pass over a sharpness, in the line, pump, or filter, the pressure will again be reduced and bubbles will form.
For these reasons I never run a filter between the pump and the carb, and specifically; never run a plastic filter which is flexible, and itself acts as an accumulator/unloader. On my car I have a lifetime metal EFI filter canister, back at the tank. It was new in about 2002. The line from the pump to the carb, at one time, I fabbed up from one piece. But eventually, I split it right at the Dual feed.

Now, your mechanical fuelpump has valves in it. Some of them open under vacuum to pull the fuel forward from the tank, and others open to release the fuel upstream to the carb. These guys are just like your heartvalves, pulling and pushing your lifeblood around in a circle.
The thing is, that as long as the pump is below the liquid level in the tank, the pump is gravity-primed, so one of those valves could be defective and you might never know it. ..... until you shut the engine off, and the fuel-pressure instantly falls to zero as the fuel backs up in reverse, back into the intake side of the pump. Of course with the loss of pressure, the gas boils.
Most guys know that a fuelpump has to make pressure; not so many know that it also has to make a vacuum, and more importantly, the pressure must not bleed backwards thru it.
To vacuum-test your pump;
I recommend that you remove it and clamp it in a bench-vise. Then install your vacuum gauge on the intake side, and pump the lever until it can no longer increase the vacuum. The vacuum should increase with each stroke until it peaks, and more importantly, it should NOT decrease during the test AND should hold at peak for quite some time after you quit pumping; the longer the better. Sorry; I cannot specify a time, as I have forgotten it.
To pressure-test your pump;
Install your vacuum/fuel-pump tester on the pressure side and again stroke until the pressure peaks. When you stop, the pressure should remain at peak for "quite some time". Again I have forgotten the spec. I'm gonna guess several minutes at least.
If your pump fails either of these tests, I would replace it.
While you are at it, replace the plastic filter with a metal one, and install it according to the arrow on the side of it. If I had a filter on the pressure side, I would orient it vertically. The fuel line on the pressure side, should NOT be attached to the engine anywhere unless the attaching-clamp is insulated and NOT tight to the line. The engine is at ~200*F and will transfer it's heat to anything it comes in contact with and fuel loves heat. Keep the line away from the hot exhaust, which typically runs from 350 to 800*F and could run as hot as 1100. I run my 3/8 steel line inside the front stub-frame, beginning at under the front seat, and it comes out right by the pump, where I have a very short rubber jumper to isolate it from the Hot pump.
Like I said; zero percolation issues with 87E10.
Jus trying to help.
 
I have been running 87E10 in my 11.3Scr 367 since 1999, with zero percolation issues whatsoever.
But then, the daytime ambient temperature around here rarely gets to 100*F and if it does, then never more than for a few days in a row.
I'm not saying that the fuel in the bowls doesn't evaporate after a few days; that is a different issue.

Here's some help;
As you probably know, our gasoline is composed of several different compounds. The lightest of these boils at around 95*F and the heaviest at about 450*. But those numbers are at a specific ambient atmospheric pressure.
In your fuel-line with the car running, the fuel pressure should be over 3.5psi. This will increase the boiling points of all the compounds. How much I don't remember.
When you shut the car off, that pressure should remain in the line until the float drops due to evaporation, or percolation in the Hot bowl. Thus the fuel should NOT boil in the line for quite a while. If it boils as the car is running, measure the pressure between where it is boiling and the float-valve. My guess is that the valve is not closed.
But if your fuel-pump is sucking air, and it gets trapped in the filter, then that bubble of air will act like a spring because air is compressible. OR
Consider that the fuel, if it is being sucked up by a mechanical pump, that fuel may be under less than atmospheric pressure...... and so it would boil at less than 95*F. OR
anytime the fuel is required to pass over a sharpness, in the line, pump, or filter, the pressure will again be reduced and bubbles will form.
For these reasons I never run a filter between the pump and the carb, and specifically; never run a plastic filter which is flexible, and itself acts as an accumulator/unloader. On my car I have a lifetime metal EFI filter canister, back at the tank. It was new in about 2002. The line from the pump to the carb, at one time, I fabbed up from one piece. But eventually, I split it right at the Dual feed.

Now, your mechanical fuelpump has valves in it. Some of them open under vacuum to pull the fuel forward from the tank, and others open to release the fuel upstream to the carb. These guys are just like your heartvalves, pulling and pushing your lifeblood around in a circle.
The thing is, that as long as the pump is below the liquid level in the tank, the pump is gravity-primed, so one of those valves could be defective and you might never know it. ..... until you shut the engine off, and the fuel-pressure instantly falls to zero as the fuel backs up in reverse, back into the intake side of the pump. Of course with the loss of pressure, the gas boils.
Most guys know that a fuelpump has to make pressure; not so many know that it also has to make a vacuum, and more importantly, the pressure must not bleed backwards thru it.
To vacuum-test your pump;
I recommend that you remove it and clamp it in a bench-vise. Then install your vacuum gauge on the intake side, and pump the lever until it can no longer increase the vacuum. The vacuum should increase with each stroke until it peaks, and more importantly, it should NOT decrease during the test AND should hold at peak for quite some time after you quit pumping; the longer the better. Sorry; I cannot specify a time, as I have forgotten it.
To pressure-test your pump;
Install your vacuum/fuel-pump tester on the pressure side and again stroke until the pressure peaks. When you stop, the pressure should remain at peak for "quite some time". Again I have forgotten the spec. I'm gonna guess several minutes at least.
If your pump fails either of these tests, I would replace it.
While you are at it, replace the plastic filter with a metal one, and install it according to the arrow on the side of it. If I had a filter on the pressure side, I would orient it vertically. The fuel line on the pressure side, should NOT be attached to the engine anywhere unless the attaching-clamp is insulated and NOT tight to the line. The engine is at ~200*F and will transfer it's heat to anything it comes in contact with and fuel loves heat. Keep the line away from the hot exhaust, which typically runs from 350 to 800*F and could run as hot as 1100. I run my 3/8 steel line inside the front stub-frame, beginning at under the front seat, and it comes out right by the pump, where I have a very short rubber jumper to isolate it from the Hot pump.
Like I said; zero percolation issues with 87E10.
Jus trying to help.
 
Thanks.
Still not sure what I'll do. Car gets driven very little....22k since 1985..
I hate crawling under a car anymore, unless I know it'll have a positive result.
 
My 69 Dart Slant 6
Oh, hey, you've got a '69. If it still has a 1969 carburetor and air cleaner, then it still has this throttle plate anti-ice system, which is thoroughly unnecessary with today's gasoline formulations. All it does is heat up the carburetor like a teakettle and cause a rip-roaring case of percolation: fuel boils in the carb bowl, overboils through the nozzles into the intake tract, and floods the engine. Bypass it by removing the metal pipe from the carburetor throttle body, installing an appropriately-sized invert-flare/hose barb fitting in its place (I think it's 1/4" IV-flare, but could be 3/16"), and connect the rubber hose directly from the nipple on the underside of the air cleaner baseplate to the new nipple you just installed on the carburetor throttle body.

Until then, the get-by method is to floor the accelerator and hold it there (no pumping!) while cranking the hot engine.
 
. If it boils as the car is running, measure the pressure between where it is boiling and the float-valve. My guess is that the valve is not closed

In the video I posted above you can watch the filter fill with vapor under pressure as the engine is running. (Ideling in the driveway after a drive 75 to 85deg day.


In my dart 273 2bbl the filter would go empty, the pressure between the filter and the carb would stay at 5 to 7 for a bit then drop to about 3 as the engine would start to idle down in RPM then an inrush of fuel and the rpm would pick up.
That is on alcohol laced fuel.
Does not happen on non alcohol fuel.
 
This is not a fault or a problem. The filter isn't supposed to be full of liquid fuel
I have to disagree with your statement.

The filter like the oil filter has to have liquid in it to function.

The fuel comes from the tank as a liquid.
The liquid is pressurized by the fuel pump and forced into the filter as a liquid, it then presses up against the float needle and when the float goes down, the needle allowed more liquid fuel into the carb.

If your trying to say that when the filter is on its side it will not fully fill ok I agree that can happen, like in my video. If the filter was vertical it would be 100% full.

It's just the nature of liquids.
 
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