Timing problem

-
Hooray for Good sons.
Mine cares not a bit about automotive things. Nevertheless he has his own field of knowledge. And is a respectful son, and loving husband and recently a doting father, and is busy making more little rascals.
 
glhx said:
its like

To get the car to even run.
Top dead center when the piston is up on he number 1.
We have to turn the distributor to number 8 wire to get it to run right

As long as I keep pumping gas into it when it's pointed closer to 8 the car will run
Click to expand...

This is just me, but you started this post off by saying you had old gas in it. If I were you, I would drop the tank, flush it out with good gas, blow backwards through the line, carefully, to get as much as the old gas out as you can, then re-install the tank, put some good gas in it, and I would even clean or rebuild the carb(s) too. If you have bad gas, you won't get anywhere timing it.

Good luck.
 
I took apart the carb and cleaned it. The new double filters before and after the fuel pump. The one before will be removed but it kept the contaminants out of the pump as the sock was disintegrated. They also kept the carb good and the carb saw bad gas only for a short time as I had just installed it. It was more like contaminated new gas.

The old tank was new 7 years ago so there was no rust in there and on the inside it still is good and galvanize coated. I think. When I say I think. I mean..............the sending unit that is sold is advertised as stainless steel. It is not completely stainless. The electrical housing is plated. The old gas that ate the float and the sock. Also dried up on the housing and ate that coating. When washed the old gas off that sending unit. That part rusted.

I tried acetone to clean the old tank and it didn't touch the dried up gasoline. I did put new gas in the tank. 10 gallons of it. It didn't break up the sediment of dried out 7 year old gas either. The car ran with this contaminated gas just fine. It made the plugs dirty. There's some oil on them as well.
The new gas soaked up the old sediment and trashed it but the engine still ran with it. I guess it had enough of what it needed to burn it.

Water and dawn might Break up the sediment in the old tank.
The old tank That was barely used. I keep finding myself fixing things and then the old stuff is out of sight out of mind. Other stuff is a priority. Like now that I have the new tank. The old tank is not worth messing with. Even though I know it is. Because this can happen again and experience of getting old dried up gas out of the tank successfully would be good. Acetone is too expensive and dried out too fast. It also didn't cut the old gas well enough.

Water and dawn on the sending unit took the dried gas off after a soak. If I put the old gas tank in the bathtub with some serious cleaner it should do it. I didn't want to use acid based products or abrasive products so as to not kill the galvanized finish.

I replaced the tank and sending unit with new parts and that made a big difference. The gas is now clean and the car seems to be running well. Probably needs an oil change after 7 year old oil.

I'm thinking 20w50 this time.

The problem was me just not diagnosing it correctly and making assumptions. Not listening to others at points.

I will say that other things slowed progress like the gas tank going bad and the starter going out. It all kind of happened at once. What you get for leaving one sit. This time I will keep it running and just throw new parts at it. It had some vibration on the highway and feels very unstable at 80mph. Could be because it's almost 50 years old.
 
I'm not sure where you live, if they have a gas tank/radiator shop. But in the city I live in, they have one that can boil the old tank in some kind of solution that gets that 7 year old dried up gas out of the tank. Then they coat it with some kind of tough sealant and I had that done about 14 years ago. Still works great. No bad gas at all has re-contaminated my fuel and the coating is as good as the day they put it in. I didn't know yours had sat for 7 years. Yeah, you gotta get all that dried up gas out or get a new tank. Is your fuel line rusted? My Duster sat for 15 years, the original fuel line had rusted pretty badly. I replaced it, along with the tank. I replaced it with a used tank, but had it cleaned and coated inside. I use straight 30w in the summer and 10w30 in the winter. I really don't think it needs the 20w50, anyone else have some input there?

Did you change the plugs yet? Champion Copper Top work good for me, you will definitely need new spark plug wires, I would replace the ballast resistor too. If you have the time and money, go ahead and replace the water pump and thermostat, the water pump has grease in the bearings that has probably dried up too. It will be going out on you shortly. The thermostat spring is probably not going to function properly after sitting that long either, and will be going out shortly. The radiator should be fine if it had 50/50 water/rad fluid. I don't think 7 years would hurt that, but I do think you should at least grease the U-joints, that is probably where your vibration is coming from, may need to replace both of them, and change the grease in the rear end because it is old now too.

After all that, shweew, you may need to replace stuff here and there, but that is all the stuff I can think of that would be affected by sitting for 7 years, oh, the front wheel bearings will need to at least be re-greased and grease the front end joints. All the parts with grease in them will have dried up after sitting that long.

Then you should have a top running machine. It's better to replace this stuff now before it goes out on you that break down somewhere with an over heated engine, or dropping a drive shaft, for example. I had to replace all this stuff and more on my Duster after it sat for 15 years, but that was twice as long as yours sat. But still, all the grease is dry by now.
 
glhx said:
Probably needs an oil change after 7 year old oil.

I'm thinking 20w50 this time.
Click to expand...
This caught my eye. IMHO: Nix on the 20W-50, IMHO. You don't know the oil pump condition and picking up heavier weights when cool/cold gets harder and harder with heavier and heavier weights. I'd stick to 10W40 or 10W30.

Since you have been Rip van Winkle for a while, it sounds like it may be time for you to read up on the threads on ZDDP, if you have not kept up. If you have any sort of performance cam with higher springs pressures and lifts, the newer oils starting in 2006 had the ZDDP levels reduced to where performance flat tappet cams started failing regularly. Weights at 30 and below have lower ZDDP now, expect for certain specialty oils, and some weights above the 30 level have low ZDDP too. You may be candidate for half a bottle of Rislone Oil Supplement (or some other ZDDP additive) in the oil at each change to fortify the ZDDP levels.
 
Will look into the zddp additive and go with 10w40

I tried to get my local radiator shop to mess with it. He told me it would be $150 and the tank cost half that new so I went with new.

I had done a lot of work on the car back then. Replacing the tank and fuel line. I went with aluminum line so it was good. I got all the old gas out of the tank, lines and filters, might be why my starter went bad. I wanted to upgrade anyway as I have some short headman headers here I want to run.

Question: why will it need new wires and ballast resistor. I have a new one laying around. This one on the car now was replaced and never run.

The plugs were New Years ago so I cleaned them and sanded them on the tips.

I put a new master cylinder on it
New trans filter, all trans seals including shifter shaft and speedometer seals. Changed the transmission fluid.

Ujoints were replaced 7 years ago.

Basically I replaced a whole lot of stuff 7 years ago and started a family. I left the car sitting in front of my dads house the entire time because I had moved.
She left late last year for a married man whomalso left his wife and young son.
So I came back to a car with flat tires and non running condition, decided to bring it back to life and fully operational. I decided the double two.....while pretty cool and very functional needed to gonwith something more user friendly and reliable. I didn't want to do a custom choke and kick down cable bracket so a Holley took its place. I'll probably mess with them sometime down the road.
I've had the car 20 years. It hasn't been driven 500 miles in that time. It's gone through a slant six to a 440 and now down to a 318. It's sitting at where a dart gt would be as far as the options go and will stay with a small block from now on. Now I'd like to drive it a lot and get it completely roadworthy to start putting some miles on it. Possibly make it a daily drive next spring/summer season. I lost almost everything and this is something I had left. So I decided to start over there.
I do appreciate all your help and showing me how to do all this timing stuff. I've never Ben very old at it it I think I have it this time.

I'm going to go ahead and
Regrease u joints
wheel bearings and suspension components for good measure
Change differential oil...Should be good then.

Does differential oil break down after sitting for long periods of time?
 
Last edited:
Diff gear oil and trannie gear oil may accumulate moisture, which will acidify the gear oil and can etch bearings and gear surfaces. So I would eventually drain it out and renew just for purging any accumulated moisture. If you are west of about the 100th parallel, things are a lot drier and this is not much if an issue. But east of, say, Oklahoma City, that moisture may get in there.

The ballast will not go bad sitting unless you see any obvious corrosion on the contacts. Make sure you have an OEM ballast or at least and MSD 0.8 ohm (cold) ballast; the Mopar system uses are a very low ballast resistance (0.5 to 0.6 ohms cold for the OEM one) and there are a lot of higher resistance ballasts that folks get a hold of by mistake, which will weaken your spark.

Spark plug wires don't typically go bad just sitting, but the rubber/insulation may get hard and be more prone to breaking down. So, it would be on my 'eventual' list to renew. Plugs do weird things, so they would get replaced too, if the engine is a performance one. (Plain-jane stock compression engines seem to be effected less.)

Yes, good thinking: squirt some new grease into the U-joints to force out any that may have hardened up a bit over 7 years.

Same for balls joints and tie rod ends. Rubber boots may be all cracked and shot by now. Sounds like a front end bushing and steering joints rebuild may be in order; with an alignment. Might be a good time to look in to putting in offset upper control arm bushing to get more caster than stock to make it more directionally stable at high speeds. I don't mind the old low caster angle steering (probably 'cuz I grew up on it), but many folks don't like the feel. There is a lot of good info on the Suspension forum here.

That is quite a story you have there..... hope it all works out good in the long run.
 
Please don't forget to re-grease the front wheel bearings, "ASAP" like. Since the car sat that long, the grease in them, like the u-joints and everything else has hardened and you could lose a wheel, if not more than that, if you catch my drift, going 80.

Rislone Zinc Oil Supp is good stuff. Have been using it for years.

It was only $75 to boil and coat the tank for me, but that was 14 years ago. Everything has gone sky high since then.

But I would re-grease the front wheel bearings before I did anything else, and maybe it really wouldn't hurt to replace all the wheel cylinders. Nothing like your front wheels falling off or the brakes going out. Those two I would say would take the highest priority on my todo list.

Sorry about your woman.
 
Will do. I'll regrease and repacks them before I take the car back out. It's got a disc conversion on it from a duster so I'm good there.

The differential bearings have never been replaced. Who knows what they look like. They are often overlooked because of the difficulty installing them. I've never done it before but I do have a shop press.

eBay that tank was $75 and the sending unit was $38. I did refinish he tank with a clearcoat to prevent rust. The tank I put in there 7 years ago was new. It rusted due to cheap galvanization in certain spots. This on should be good and not do that.

As far as the woman goes. I'll be fine. I just wishe she wouldn't mess up our 4 year old daughter. Infidelity is not a good thing to teach young kids. Funny thing.......the same thing happened when her dad did that to her mom at the same age of 4. I'll have to be more careful in the future.
 
Glad to hear you're gonna do the front wheel bearings. I re-do mine every 3 years, but I only drive it about 1,000 miles a year. It is an age thing with the grease, it only holds up for so many years before it loses it's ability to minimize friction. Yeah, those are probably the original rear wheel bearings. I replaced everything in my diff when I rebuilt the car, and just about everything else on the car too, lol! After 15 years not much worked, or it was no longer safe.

Relationships are not my forte', but yeah, that's not cool to do to a kid. The more stable the home life, ie. mom and dad, the more stable they will be and the better chances they will have at success in life and their relationships too. I know that much. My Duster is the most stable thing in my life. Everything else has come and gone, but my Duster I have had for 14 years, and the 72 Dart which a lot of the parts came from, I had for 15 before that. I think the thing I like about a car, more than a woman, is that they are logical. If it isn't working, there is a logical reason for it. lol!!!
 
Diff bearings is a whole 'nother thing.... if the gear oil is good, then they usually do not show issues after sitting. The press is one thing.. setting up the diff after changing them is a special process..... not for the faint-hearted or casual mechanic.
 
I mean the axle bearings near the brakes.
I'm sure those are original and have never been replaced. I replaced the diff fluid 20 years ago. Never ran the car much.

Setting up a diff is difficult. If I were to take the 8.25 sure grip 3:55 out of an xj jeep and sit it in my 73 duster 8.25 with a 2:76.

Would I have to set it up with the dial indicator and the gear paint?
I've decided I want a sure grip. ......and if I didn't want the 3:55. Will the ring and pinion gears interchange. I will mostly be running around town and highway. Might not even be worth it.
 
I have 3:55's in my Duster behind a 360, slightly modified and haven't regretted it one minute. Plenty of power on take off and not too many rpm's on the highway. It will spin both tires when taking off from a stop and one tire when turning. I'm no rear end specialist, but the 3:55's are great for both take off and highway, the 2:72's I had in the Dart were "Way" too high for taking off. I mean it would take off like a dog, but they highway was great. I think it would be worth it if you ask me. Just because when you want to drive around town, you don't want to take off super slow, you know?
 
Yeah. I think it would be fine with them. I was going for gas mileage originally. But I think all around would be better.

It's pretty cool that we can get those parts from stuff that newer like that.
I've been out of it for a while and don't know all the tricks and parts swaps anymore. Like the factory fuel injections off the newer stuff bolting onto the 360 or 318. I saw something on that.

Or the disc brakes on the rear from a jeep xj.

Someone sold me a u joint for my steering column off a ups truck that made it more firm feeling. It's that red thing in the avatar picture.

Little stuff here and there.....headlight relays. What I would like to do is upgrade the alternator. And run some jeep headlights. They are plastic but they fit right in there and are much brighter
 
Yeah the 3:55's are a real "middle of the road" gear if you know what I mean. lol

I wanted to swap over to those super bright headlights too, I got some lenses with the slots for the new bulbs if you can call them that, but I was told not to up the amps in my alt unless I re-wired the alt's wiring from the alt to at least the new headlights and to the battery because if you jump up the amps it will burn up your old wiring which was only intended for the stock amperage. I forget what stock amperage is, but when the battery drains low, it will suck what ever the alt can put out and if your wires can't handle it, they will go up in smoke. I was going to put a chrome 50 amp alt on mine, like it shows in the avatar, I pulled it off because of this very reason, and at the time I couldn't find a chrome stock, I think it is 30 amp, alt.

I could use one of those UPS U-joints. My steering isn't all over the place, but it could tighten up some.
 
I checked Summit, they have them in 50, 75 and 150 amps, lol? How many where you planning on using? Don't forget to run the thicker wires to the head lights too, I was also told the headlights will need their own relay. I am not electrically inclined. I understand electricity, and how it works and all, but I have dyslexia really bad and I mix wire colors up. Like I will mix the pos and neg up because I think the pos is the neg and the neg is the pos! So I don't do electrical work. But yeah, that is an awesome alt!
 
Added 10w40 oil

Oil pressure went from 20psi fully warmed up.....to 40psi
On start up I get 65psi

The car surges really bad when I step on the gas. It idles great.
Could be the points. They have not been adjusted yet.
This thing sat so long......the list of getting it fully operational is long.

I upgraded the dash light to led and ran new wires and 30 amp relays to the head lights

Considering a volt meter conversion where the amp gauge is.
Replacing the heater ducts with shop vac hose
Changing the old wiper seals.
And some other minor electrical stuff.
 
glhx said:
Added 10w40 oil

Oil pressure went from 20psi fully warmed up.....to 40psi
On start up I get 65psi

The car surges really bad when I step on the gas. It idles great.
Could be the points. They have not been adjusted yet.
This thing sat so long......the list of getting it fully operational is long.

I upgraded the dash light to led and ran new wires and 30 amp relays to the head lights

Considering a volt meter conversion where the amp gauge is.
Replacing the heater ducts with shop vac hose
Changing the old wiper seals.
And some other minor electrical stuff.
Click to expand...


It takes a lot of TLC sometimes after they sit a while. You can get a semi-stock semi-high performance electronic distributor from Halifaxhops if I got his name right. It may be two "L's" He is a member here. He can tell you what kind of electronic ignition control module and blast resistor to use. I use a PB Blaster coil with mine and man did it "ever" pick up the performance. All stock parts should run you under $200 for the conversion. If you are good with electrical, you should have no prob hooking it up. But you will need some wiring diagrams to get you there. I recommend finding the wiring diagrams first, then get the parts. Halifaxhops really hooked me up with an awesome distributor for my 360. I was running points, then I had a buddy converted mine to electronic, was running a stock elec. distributor for the longest time. Then I found Halifax and my engine really improved again with the distributor he sold me. I can find him if you want to talk to him in here. Lemme know.
 
Yes I'm interested in that.

I was looking at the pertronix any way.
I do have an electronic distributor from the 76 Dodge Charger.
I have a feeling is is not a good distributor as the curve is long.
I couldn't get it to work even with a new box but I didn't mess with it much. Something about having the dual ballast and an electronic box seemed very cluttered. Not against it though.

Said screw it..... I want it running and threw the points in. Was going to revisit the electronic hook up and just figure out why it wasn't working. Might have hooked it up wrong. Then I ran into that silly vacuum leak......bang head.......I've got little experience with carbureted engine problems when it comes to air fuel and spark.
Because it could be anything......and it seems the symptoms all look the same to me.

It was weird that the timing was doing that. I sorted it out some in my head.
Retarding the timing was causing a backfire out the intake? It was strange to me. It drove me nuts. I knew that cap was on there as I made sure.....I just didn't know it was a cheap cap and came off easily. Might have been in a hurry. Soon as I saw it I knew.

I haven't done research on it on the 76 distributor so I'm not sure about it. The box from autozone is gold in color and the ballast is new and has the correct resistance to drop the voltage.

What I've decided on is the 302 heads
with a 256 or a 262 cam
Edelbrock Performer intake for the air conditioning clearance.
.......but I've heard the weind action plus or the ld4b is better
600 Holley that's on there now
Short headers that I already have.......and might leave it there
3.55 gears out of a Cherokee with sure grip for the 8 1/4. Though the 2.76 has its purpose
And leave the car there......
Maybe mess with the heads or add some cheap pistons for some extra compression. Or do this this stuff to the 68 block. I think it has more compression anyway and a forged crankshaft? I was told it was smoking some when the gas was stepped on....who knows why

Of course the distributor upgrade needs to happen.


I bought a factory air conditioning box and controls 10 years ago that
Was sitting in a rusted out car so that box needs completely gone through but is very solid.
Decided to add a/c.
Looking at a 1985 ram compressor and just tying that into the original evaporator.

I've got a good idea where I want this car for the street now. It's going to take some time to get it there.

It is leaking on the drivers side as well into the fresh air system so under the wiper panel where that fresh air tower might be rusted.

It also needs a new roof skin welded on so I may either glue one on or reweld it.

The added leds in the dash lights and dome lights made a huge difference. I left the blue diffusers in.

Lots of stuff to do yet...adding zinc additive tomorrow.....rislone.

34734900391_e8316c1158_z.jpg
This is where I'm at now. A fiberglass hood is in order as well-

34056062303_86f9e95643_z.jpg
-

34734898251_1f427216ff_z.jpg
-

It needs quite a bit of work.....but it's on the road.
 
Last edited:
Just a couple things, the curve for a 360 for example would be different for a 318, which would be different for a 383 etc. That is where Halifaxhops comes in, he can sort it all out for you and get you an original factory cased dist. with the right curve for your set up/CID etc. The timing curve is critical to it running right as the curve needs to be in sync with the acceleration of the engine and since it is the vacuum that controls it, it needs to all be set up right.

I had so much trouble getting quality parts from Autozone about 15 years ago, that I just stopped buying anything from them. I go to Oriely's now, and they aren't paying me to say that, lol? But I had like 3 rebuilt alternators from them that didn't work, in a row, then bad 4 starters in a row which I R&Red myself, that put a bad taste in my mouth for Autozone, not to mention all the faulty parts I bought from them before that. I don't know where they get their stuff, but I have had so much trouble from them, I never go there any more. I have only gotten the wrong part from O'Reily's once, and everything has worked right the first time for 15 years now, so I highly recommend them.

You are right about the problems with the carbureted engines. How it could be spark or fuel, and they act the same way. I think it would be best to fix the electronic ignition first because it is more reliable than points. Points have to be set within about 4-5 thousands or you could have backfires or not enough spark or other issues. With the E.I. you just have to time it. Then the carb, with a Holley, there are some issues to deal with, but what I do is run the air/fuel mixtures all the way in on a 600, I have a 650 but they only have two air/fuel screws. The 750 I have has 4. A Holley tech told me for two a/f adj. screws you run both of them all the way in, the back them 1-1/2 turns out to get it running. Then only adjust it 1/8th to 1/16th of a turn either in or out, but turn one only a little bit, then turn the other one the exact same amount to adjust them. If you just turn one to bring the vac. up, then it will be out of adjustment on the other side. To keep them equal, turn one only slightly, then the other just the same to make any adjustments. Then with a vac gauge on it, turn the screws to get it running at the highest vac possible. You should here the engine smooth out a lot when you hit pay dirt/the right spot.

I use rislone too. Seems to help a lot. No problems thus far. I am trying to find out what a good synthetic is to run for oil. I hear Mobile1 is pretty good, but to make sure the formula I use has enough zinc, or add some.

Man, I would like to see your car when your done. Sounds awesome already. I have a Peformer on mine and no regrets as they say. Wish I had A/C, as I am in S. Tx. lol!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top