Motors bogs down

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belvedere67

belvedere67

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Hello all. I have a 318 I stuffed in a 1950 dodge truck. I'm restoring the truck myself. The motor was bought about 2 years ago from a fella on craigslist. I had the motor running last summer when I had it sitting in the frame of the truck just to make sure it ran good and it seemed to. Fast forward to now. Body work is a done ,wiring us also done. Now I want to make sure it still runs before I plan to paint next week. When I turn it over it seems to bog down. I put in New plugs , New wires, and high torque mini starter yesterday. It's got a hei Mopar distributor. It also hasn't fired. Could it be a weak battery? Or something I'm missing. Thanks for any help. (Btw the motor is out of a 1971 dodge dart, alum intake, edelbrock 4 barrel carb if it matters.
 
If I understand by what you mean by "bog down", you are saying that the engine turns over slow..........first guess is make sure all electrical connections are clean and tight, put battery on charge over night. Let us know what happens.
 
Do you know how old the battery is?
Up here in Canada, I don't trust them after 5 year's.
But I have seen some go for 8 years.
Just a thought.
Mike.
 
You have a multimeter? Battery load tester? In other words what do you have for test equipment?
 
I havent check the battery yet, tomorrow I will. It will turn over fine for a few seconds then slow down, then speed up, the slow and so on. Ill put the charger on over night and see what happens. Thanks again.
 
likely a bad battery or a messed up distributor. When you are cranking the battery is using cranking amps. If the battery is bad then you will have either a no start or a very weak start. However you can have it running and it seams like the battery is operating fine. I tend to run into this problem if I have to constantly use a jump box on a weak battery, or if I use the rapid charge on my battery charger over and over. An auto parts store should be able to check to see if the cranking amps are good or not. Have you been able to get it running, maybe jump it with another car. It should start if jumped. If not then its either the battery or some other component. Did you install a fusible link?
 
check for a bad ground/ and how did you wire the dist for power?
 
I have the power for thj dist wired right to the ignition switch so it should have good power, I checked the date of the battery and I bought it in 2012. I think ill start with that.
 
After you have cranked it over for bit, feel around and see if maybe you have a hot cable. Use care, you may find a really hot spot.
 
belvedere67 said:
The ground cable is a little warm.
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Sometimes I will run a jumper cable from the negative post to a good ground on the block. If cranking improves it can mean the cable has a problem. Assuming the connection at the negative post is clean and tight. Somewhere there is some resistance. The starter may even be a lot hotter than it ought to be. Under most conditions, but not all, I would assume that the battery is at worst fair since it is able to heat the system up. But charging it and taking it to the auto parts is a free test.
The starter can also be tested.
 
Battery tested fine, turns out my timing was a bit off. Moved my wires around now it fires without hesitation. Thanks for the help guys.
 
belvedere67 said:
Battery tested fine, turns out my timing was a bit off. Moved my wires around now it fires without hesitation. Thanks for the help guys.
Click to expand...

Isn't it great when the solution turns out to only cost you some frustration rather than hundreds of dollars?

Keep us posited on the truck! It sounds awesome and what we can see of it in your avatar pic looks cool.
 
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