So I finally got my 302 back together after having the fuel pump eccentric come loose on me. Got it all back together, fired right up and I thought to myself! Perfect! Took it for a ride and had a loose belt. Got that all tight once I returned home. A week has p***ed and I took it out for a longer test drive this weekend. Ran great until about 15 minutes after driving it felt like it was running out of fuel. exhaust was kind of popping and it was tough to keep it running, was running kind of rough. so I pulled over and looked everything over that I could and didnt find anything. Pulled the air cleaner off and i had plent of fuel going in the carb. So after looking around I fired it back up and it all seemed fine again??? So I continued driving over to a buddies house. Hung out for about a half hour then returned home. Car was runnign great until I turned into my neighborhood. Same thing happened. Started to run a little rough exhaust was popping a little bit and I have to pedal it a little bit to keep it running. Backed it in to my garage and it was idling really low and wouldve shut off if i didnt keep it running by pedaling it. I have two clear fuel filters on the car, one at the tank and one at the motor. The one at the motor seems fine and has fuel in it and not really dirty at all. I haven't checked the one at the tank. I am asking if this sounds like and issue that i might not be thinking about? The car hasnt been driven since last July when the eccentric came loose. Could this be bad fuel? I always use Non-oxy fuel in the car. I did not put any kind of stabil, or sea foam in the tank that sat all winter. Any thoughts or help would be great. I have a 200 mile cruise planned this weekend and dont want to get stranded!!! Thanks all!! Jason
If you've got fuel, I'd think electrical. Are the sparkplugs fouling? I run a six, but have had similar symptoms that ended up being electrical gremlins: 2 new sparkplugs that went bad in a matter of about a week (NGKs), and a bad condenser out of the box. I recall replacing vac advance, coil, points and rotor also. Had the dizzy checked also. Sometimes its hard to find a simgle culprit for these issues. Check primary and secondary electricals from A to Z. Good luck.
Check the filter back at the tank and change it,since the car sat that long if the gas had ethanol it probably drew in moisture so I would do a Seafoam treatment on it and this: Almost a must up in your area.
I rebuild Carbs and sell them to fund my project, this illustrates what I have found in Carbs that sat with ethanol fuel,this flaky **** can plug up things badly you might want to open up the Carb and check if the Seafoam and Heet don't work.If you are going to let the car sit for a while use the Seafoam or Stabil when you park it.
One admittedly unlikely but plausible possibility. I have a '53 that acted just as you described and I pretty much lost what hair I have left trying to suss it out. Cutting to the chase, there was one of those foil seals from a bottle of additive in the gas tank that would work its way to the outlet and cover it. If I stopped for a few minutes, just as you did, it would move away and allow full fuel flow until it worked its way back to the outlet. I found it with a bore scope and removed it through the sender hole.
I would say fuel pick up issue as well, since going around the corners makes this issue appear. I would also say that the pump by the tank will be difficult to judge dirtiness visually since the pump has to **** through that filter, versus usually the one by the carb the pump pushes fuel through. Was your tank new when you did your amazing build?
Well I plan to take a look at it tonight. I did re-use the original tank when I built the car. It had some sediment in it and I spent about two days cleaning it with misc things. I have ran the tank for about 3 years now and no issues. I'm going to start with the filter in back. I'm hoping that is it......if not I think I will trace the fuel line and double check the pressure I get at the motor. I have borrowed a fuel pressure gauge that I can put in line to check pressure while driving. I appreciate the comments guys! I also hope I can get the car reliable again. Before this, the car has driven many miles between states in the mid-west. Never had an issue until this. Lets hope its nothing major and I can make my car cruise this weekend!! Jason
Mechanical fuel pump? What type of ignition? I ask because when I tried to get my Galaxie started in the spring it would start and then sputter and die as soon as you would try to give it gas to get moving. I chased my tail replacing the fuel system parts until I eventually changed the condenser, which was the culprit. I have since had to change it again, which now I'm chasing whether the offshore ignition parts are that bad or there's something going on with the resistance in the ign. circuit... Applies to points type ignition obviously...
while you are at it take good look at fuel line a pin hole from rust can drive you insane.the ones I have seen were on top not as obvious as when on side or bottom of line.when on the bottom or side you will usually see fuel dripping whereas on top it may not.this will allow air in killing the draw to fuel pump when under power.this is just something I have seen not necessarily your problem but has similar symptoms.
Well I got to look at it tonight. Plenty of fuel pressure, pulled the dirty fuel filter and replaced. Pulled all spark plugs and they all had a golden brown dry color. Tried starting and it will fire and sputter out right away. I could get to run while pumping the gas, but it would just sputter and fart then die. Should I pull the carb and pull it apart? I'm going nuts on this thing. Not sure what the next move should be. For a little bit tonight it seemed to idle fine, then start to die, now I can't get it to idle and stay running at all. I'm about to pull what hair I have left out!!
It has a mechanical fuel pump, and hei distributor. The distributor has zero miles on it seeing as I had it warrantied last fall. So it's brand new.
It sounds like you've eliminated just about everything except pickup and delivery. If you're confident that the pickup is clear and no debris in the tank, I'd go with carb issue. If you have a spare or access to one, pop it on and see what happens. Like Jeff posted above, these ethanol fuels can wreak havoc on a carb!
I think tonight i'm going to to pull out the needle and see if anything is plugging it up, or if there is some gunk on it. I pulled the carb off last night and I can hear the floats are free and moving. I'm hoping it is just some gunk or dirt that is plugging something up. I may drain the tank too. Its not tough to do on my car but I would hate to lose all that fuel!!! But I guess if its junk fuel its not worth anything anyway!!
If you are going to drain it place some cheesecloth inside a large funnel inserted into some gas cans to catch it that way you can see first hand if the there is still residue in the tank and you can salvage the clean gas.
Well I got the carb off and pulled the bowls to look internally at the carb. had some red residue in the front bowl so I cleaned it out and kind of blew out the carb ports. Im going to re-install the carb tonight and give it a try. Im going to re-check fuel pressure and see what I get. I also have some carb cleaner that I can run in-line with the fuel to try to clean out the fuel system. The motor will run off of the product so I will see if that helps at all too. If none of this helps I have no idea where to look next. I wish I had a spare carb I could try to narrow it down some more. I may also try to run a line into a clean gas can and run the motor on that to see if it still acts up, basically by p*** the tank and fuel line? I really feel im having a fuel issue with how intermittent the problem is. If I can eliminate the fuel issue I can look other spots.
The gas can idea is what I was going to suggest, but connect it directly to the fuel pump. You can also hang the gas can and connect to the carb and allow it to gravity feed. I have a 1 gallon can I drilled a hole in the lower part of with a barb threaded into the plastic for this exact use (or connecting to pump) Another odd one, disconnect the vacuum advance and see what happens. Popping could be a misfire. I had a plate come loose and drive me nuts. Run great, then ****py, then great. Personally, I like the late 70's Ford Duraspark, EECII system with the box on the fender well.
Well I spent some time on the car again on Friday after work. I think I may have a distributor issue. I did everything I could with the fuel system and there is no way I have an issue with that now. good fuel pressure, no leaks, clean carb, and fresh gas didnt make one difference. The HEI I have was a brand new replacement for a bad one last summer. Its a cheap one from online. I think Im going to buy a better Pertonix unit and get rid of the ugly HEI. I went HEI due to ease of use and part availability, but this would be the second one from the same place that is bad in three years. I pulled the dist. out last Friday just to look at the gear and make sure it wasn't wearing bad or something like that. Well it all looked good and I must have put the distributor back in the wrong spot cause it just pops and doesnt sound good. At that point I just stopped and cut the gr*** to clear my head. After talking with fellow club members they think I need to do one or both of two things. I do not have the motor grounded to the frame right now. I have never had an issue, but one buddy thought maybe it had always made a good connection and now it isnt? The other is to replace the cheap HEI and go with a better distributor unit. I may try the ground fix with some jumper cables just to see if it makes a difference. I know I have heard people have big issues with having a bad ground. So for now I need to get the motor back to TDC and set my timing if i can get it running with having the motor grounded. If it works then I know the issue. If it doesnt, im ordering a new distributor!!
Sounds good. If you can get her to run as it was just check primary and secondary ignition circuits as i proposed earlyer. Its not hard to go over these simple things and maybe you'll find one or two culprits you arent expecting before ordering a new dizzy. Hope you clear it. Your car is just too damn cool to be grounded (pun intended). Regards.
Jumper Cables will not give you a good ground,get two cables with ends like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vehicle-Bat...7-6-/311357159669?hash=item487e5538f5&vxp=mtr probably about $6 each at Wal-Mart bolt one from a cylinder head to the frame clean the place where you bolt it down to bare metal,put the second cable from a rear intake bolt to the firewall to a master cylinder bolt would also be good and also bare the metal and you should be fine, my "cheap' HEI is now 5 years old and doing fine also the wire from the HEI to a 12 volt source should be 12 gauge, mine is from the HEI to the solenoid.You are asking for shorts when you don't have good grounds.
If you want to get a one wire on the cheap, you can get a motorcraft rebuilt points distributor on rock auto for around 50 bucks.. Put in a Pertronix III (recomended because you dont need to change the points rotor and takes less than 5 minutes to install, and get a 12 volt pertronix coil, and terminate your 12 volt hot wire to the coil, and the pertronix lead to the negative. Basically all ford distrubutors are the same, so if you want to keep your female end wires, you just need a later (78) cap and rotor (with adaptor).
The ground from the engine/frame would most likely only affect your lighting or accessories. I had one that the headlights only worked if I had the clutched pedal pressed down! That was a head scratcher at the time (I was 17) Again, a Duraspark with harness from a s****yard. Pretty good set ups. I keep a spare module in the trunk "just in case" All factory, parts store stuff. Simple hook up with donor harness. Autozone carries the harness also
Well no real news yet. The plan is to work on it over the long weekend. I picked up a couple ground straps to install. Im hoping that solves my issue. If it doesnt im going to lean towards a new distributor. I sure hope its the grounds!!!
Good news!!! had a buddy with a better knowledge than I and a fresh set of eyes come over this weekend and give me a hand. So I had to get the motor back to TDC and re-set the timing. We got the dist. back in. I installed two ground straps, one from the motor to the body, and motor to the frame. My buddy also noticed that the power wire to the HEI was very loose and barely stayed on the terminal on the distributor. So he got that corrected so it makes a good connection. We hit the key and BAM!! Fired right up!! Had to adjust the timing a little bit and it runs like a top!! It might be in my head, but it almost seems to run better than before!!! I was about to give up, but having some fresh eyes to look over what was going on helped a ton!! On to back to the 50's in two weeks!!
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