Phreakish
Well-Known Member
It could, it might not. One tooth is ~9 degrees. It would be obvious when driving it, but may not present well at idle, especially with a stock cam. Heck, it should still idle in gear even if it skipped a tooth.
Stalls in Gear, Automatic- Restarts Good- Can Slam it into Gear! EEEK
- Thread starter Ferdinandbites
- Start date
-
It could, it might not. One tooth is ~9 degrees. It would be obvious when driving it, but may not present well at idle, especially with a stock cam. Heck, it should still idle in gear even if it skipped a tooth.
MobileCustoms
Well-Known Member
It would great if you had a spare carb, known to be a good one, to swap out and try...
mguner
How many is too many?
If you are having to pull the metering rods out of the jets to get rich enough mixture for idle there is a serious issue with the idle circuits. Either a restriction or a baseplate gasket to body mismatch. If the boosters are starting to spill over at fast idle then the float level may be a little high as well but until you find out why fuel is not flowing through the idle circuits properly you can't really diagnose any other issues with the carb.
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
hmmm, well for how its running im surprised it doesn't stay running too
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
yes, I agree, thinking of attending a local car show to meet someone who'd be willing to do so.
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
yes something is strange about what I have done. a suggestion was made to put the old mechanical pump back on which should have a lower psi to it. ive done that and am about to rehook the fuel lines to it from the electric pump. cant wait to see what happens. I did put pliers on the hose to try to lower the pressure but just to minute to stay in a precise psi but it kinda seemed to run smoother. someone also suggested to reinstall the old base gasket before I rebuilt the carb and I will do that too asap. I took the carb apart just to see what the float adjustment is and its 1/4 as the supposed specs say as per the rebuilt kit instructions.
the carb bone connects to the ignition bone the ignition bone connects to the electricery bone....... my version of the song now.
thank you for your help.
mguner
How many is too many?
That was me on the base gasket. There are so many variations of this carb and I've found the several of the kits out there don't have the correct base gasket for the early carbs. Once you get it back off and apart you can usually see what is wrong in the gasket match up or lack there of. You aren't expecting the gasket to be wrong so it doesn't get your attention the first time around. Seems like it's something to do with a tear drop shaped hole....
yellow rose
Overnight Sensation
If you pull the car into gear and the engine is being pulled down, the CONVERTER IS JUNK. The converter is what allows the car to sit in gear and idle.
You converter is JUNK for whatever reason. It ain't the carb. I can tell you that in my many decades I have seen more JUNK converters than you can think of. Some of it was self inflicted by the owner/driver. Other times they were JUNK out of the box.
For the sake of brevity, your CONVERTER IS GARBAGE. When you get a new/better/correct converter you will find you should lose 200-400 RPM from park idle to gear idle.
You converter is JUNK for whatever reason. It ain't the carb. I can tell you that in my many decades I have seen more JUNK converters than you can think of. Some of it was self inflicted by the owner/driver. Other times they were JUNK out of the box.
For the sake of brevity, your CONVERTER IS GARBAGE. When you get a new/better/correct converter you will find you should lose 200-400 RPM from park idle to gear idle.
Lustle
Well-Known Member
Have you tried checking the transmission fluid? Low or lack of fluid will cause these problems. If not. Then it's a junk converter. Almost any carb, even junk, will run in and out of gear, it will just run like crap.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Mine didn't.. Between two burnt plug wires, a terrible carb setup, and timing locked out at 35 degrees, it would drop 600+ rpm, and would quit with the idle any lower than ~1200. Coming to a stop would often kill it without two footing it. After addressing those issues (but before going efi), it would idle anywhere I wanted and drop ~100 going into gear. Nothing wrong with the converter.
While the converter isn't ruled out, it still sounds like there's enough unknowns and other issues that there's no definitive problem. If it is the converter, then when coming to a stop it would feel and act like a manual car brought to a stop without pushing in the clutch, which is a tough thing to try to describe. But coming to a stop real slow like could help identify it.
Heck, a video would probably do wonders to help pin things down. Doing the youtube account thing isn't that bad and could help clear things up fast..
Bulldozer
free ice cream sandwiches
I call bullshit on the converter. It's a fuel / carb issue
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
Except it *could* be the converter too. It's just one that's a lot tougher to diagnose, versus the fuel/timing/carb problems which should be relatively easy and need to be fixed anyway for proper operation.
Lustle
Well-Known Member
Right. Cause you had more wrong than just a bad carb. I haven't read about any burnt wires or other problems. A lot of folks seem to think it's the carb. He hasn't listed the other problems you mention (timing/wires/etc). I'm saying even a bad carb (and just a bad carb) will run in and out of gear. Especially when he's pulling 20" of vacuum and say it idles good. A problem that ONLY shows up when you put it in gear and keep it in gear. That says to me the converter is junk and is putting a load on the engine.
Phreakish
Well-Known Member
I'm not arguing it's not the converter. Only that it's less common and not the only possible cause. We've also not been given enough info to know that all 8 are firing. Or that the timing is anywhere close. Or that there isn't some other unknown. Lots of new and replaced parts doesn't mean they're all good. The last 3 times I've done tuneups on other vehicles, I have more bad sparkplugs and wires than I've ever had in the past... Today's parts-store parts are garbage (even known brands once considered good) and cause plenty of trouble on their own. So until they're verified as working, I don't put much stock in the 'but its new' statement.
TrailBeast
AKA Mopars4us on Youtube
It makes me wonder about that comment you made about a timing jump.
Do you know how to verify that?
(The distributor rotor won't be pointing at the number one plug terminal on the distributor at what the timing marks say are TDC.)
I would say it could be off by as much as 1/4 inch, and if you were to try and compensate for that with the distributor position it just runs worse, or not at all.
Try this it works pretty well.
Use a marker and make a mark on the distributor base and block (like a line from one to the other) to mark the position.
Put the damper and timing marks lined up at what your initial timing is (zero line on the damper at say 10-12 BTDC mark) or whatever your initial is.
Pull the distributor cap and use the marker to make a line down the side of the distributor about an inch long from where the cap sits on the rim downward right under the rotor tip.
Now put your distributor cap back on (just set it on if you want)
Is your number one plug wire directly inline with the line on the side of the distributor?
If not something is off.
Also it's possible you have a rotor phasing issue (meaning the rotor tip is not close enough to the right terminals inside the cap when the distributor fires the coil)
While you have the distributor cap loose and the damper set at your initial timing number look close to see if one of the rotor vanes is directly lined up with the little metal bar in the center of the pickup coil in the distributor.
These simple methods will tell you if you have a jumped timing chain or a rotor phasing problem.
Preakish made me think of one other random possibility that people fight for days on end.
Check for continuity between the two ends of the coil wire and make sure the core isn't burned out of it.
A spark could jump the gap caused by a burned out core until the engine load increases from being put in gear and then it might not be able to jump that burned out gap any longer.
(The more pressure in a cylinder, the harder it is for the spark to jump a gap)
Sometimes the gap inside a coil wire gets so long all the engine will do is idle in neutral. (Seen it multiple times)
Also seen rotors with a hole burned down through the center cause the same problem.
Cylinder pressure increases and causes the spark to go down through the rotor to the top of the distributor shaft.
This is a lot more common of HEI or other high powered ignitions, but it happens.
Last edited:
Tinbasher
Well-Known Member
Saw this happen to a dodge truck once in our shop
Turned out the centrifugal advance weights were stuck in the fully adanced mode. Truck would stall as soon as you pulled it in to drive.
Drove the owner crazy and stumped the dealership mechanics who looked at it and said it must be because the truck was on propane.
Turned out the centrifugal advance weights were stuck in the fully adanced mode. Truck would stall as soon as you pulled it in to drive.
Drove the owner crazy and stumped the dealership mechanics who looked at it and said it must be because the truck was on propane.
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
replaced gasket with old now and no difference in stalling in gear. the old gasket did look much smaller than the old one. nothing looked unusual about the old one so I kept it on, particularily the tear drop hole. not good
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
I wondered about that. if I draw a vacuum on the distributor the timing changes. but to back up I looked at the pick up coil the first time and saw that the pick up was right up against the reluctor. so, undid the screw and reset the pick up but when I did I heard a twang but didn't see anything unusual, assumed it was just some noise from undoing the bolt. I wonder if that could be the problem? what else controls timing when the load chages, not much I think besides something like the weights. any idea of how to check it, would I take the acp off and just look down, no, but its not running, hmmmm. I have also wondered about the pick up. it showed proper resistance but could that fail intermittently? hmmm
thank you for your help
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
yes, proper level, ive been thinking converter too. why and the hell would I have to raise the rpms so high if it wasn't. I though about a service first since it seems like that hasn't been done either then retest. would I be wasting my time?
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
ok, I will try to upload some short videos of exactly how this thing runs.
I hope I did this right.
Lustle
Well-Known Member
All 8 gotta be firing to pull a steady 20" of vacuum like he mentioned. And now the video he posted.
You're squawking the tires when you go into gear. Even when I had my car setup at 1400-1500 park idle (for 1000-1100 in gear idle - big cam and it was winter) it didn't do that. Converter is locked up I bet.
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
done, it wasn't too bad setting and signing up for this video to get upload but please do watch all and maybe seeing and hearing this thing like I do may help you and and then me. ill do more, video more, just want this nightmare to stop. sick of wasting family time and drinking time away. I think will be all worth it I hope in the end.
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
this is why i was so defensive about timing, carb settings regardless of how they were set being the problem. I twisted that distributor the full range of motion, set what ever I could to have that carb keep pumping the gas out and when I then increased the idle so high as you saw it , well damn well confused the sht out of me. so happy the vid is helping out here.
Ferdinandbites
Well-Known Member
thing is if I reve it high enough it stays running, just don't want to damage anything
Bulldozer
free ice cream sandwiches
If it does turn out to be a converter that would be the first time in my 35 years I've seen one present that kind of a problem. I will shut my pie hole now lol
-
