My 1950 Ford has stock 8ba flathead. On my way home from work tonight, cruising at 65 mph, A LOUD backfire and she quit. Wasn't hot, oil pressure fine, electrcal fine, fuel to the carb. Would not start when I tried to pop the clutch. I am at a complete loss. Please help. ANY advice is appreciated. I've got a friend to take me back to get my stuff, and will be checking this when I get back home. I'm SUPER worried, this is my fun car as well as my driver. THANKS for your help, wes
Crank the engine & check for spark. Did the coil wire jump out? Ballast resistor shit the bed? When you said it backfired before quitting that would leave me to belive something in the ignition system went awry. Pull the cap off dist. & make sure the points did'nt close up & rotor is turning. Good luck finding the problem, keep us posted. billy
My uneducated guess is that the distributor busted in some way, maybe the gear ripped off or the cap cracked or something. Also, get AAA if you don't already have it! I learned that lesson the hard way...a few times.
So you don't think it is something terminal like the motor blew up? That makes me feel a little better. I will check these things in the morning. If you think of anything else, please let me know what to try. I don't know of any reputable shops that work on old stuff here. I pride myself on doing all of my own work. Learning as I go. I really appreciate this site and all of ya'lls help.wes
when something expensive is about to break it'll usually give some warning before it lets go,like rod knock.i'd say 98% of the time something goes wrong it's the ignition,1.9% it's the carb,and .1% something else-george
engines dont 'blow up'. get a tow chain and go get your car! never leave your car stting on the side of the road any longer than you have to! whenever possible put it in a parking space so it doesnt look abandoned.
Get AAA or towing coverage on your insurance ASAP. Cheap and you never know when you will need it (you WILL need it if you drive an old flathead powered rig). You should never never leave an old car next to the road abandoned. There are lots of swap meets to sell off you prize piece by piece and lots of assholes that would love to steal it. My brother learned this the hard way with his historic daily driver! Finally, I have found that ignition (fire/spark or lack of it) tends to be the most common problem w/ broke down flatties. Check your wires & for spark at the plugs, check your coil (8BA's did not have a ignition resistor) & check you distributor (points). Good luck.......I've been there too. Of course it always happens at night and on a weekend.
most important, it sounds like you get to get your ass in gear and learn some troubleshooting skills if you are going to drive a flatty daily. it don't take that much. check for spark, check for gas, check for compression. the beauty of old cars is that they almost NEVER leave you stranded on the side of the road, they may break, but you can generally fix them with junk you found in the ditch and the few spare parts you carry.
It happened to me the same way. Mine was the stock fiber cam timing gear. Pull the distributer cap and see if the rotor turns when you turn it over. If it doesn't, you know where to start looking. It should sound different when you are trying to start it...no compression. An aluminum replacement gear is available and pretty easy to put in. A gear failure won't damage any other moving parts so don't panic if it's shreaded. Let us know how you make out.
I have been looking this morning. Rotor spins, points open and close, but no fire from coil. Tried to hot wire jumper from starter solenoid to fire side of coil. nothing. I'm going to try replacing condenser to see if I get fire. I also found strong gas odor in my oil and the the oil was thin. I think fuel pump diaphram may be leaking into crankcase and caused crankcase explosion? I don't know what damoage this could cause. This is what I found so far. As far as getting her off the road, I pushed her just over a mile by myself with idiots honking and throwing things at me. Three cops slowed down but did not stop to help. She was put to rest in a parking lot under a light. Then I walked the five miles home. She is one of my pride and joys, so I would never leave her exposed. But I will be getting some tow insurance. haha Thanks for the help, wes
I just went back to her and replaced the condenser, with no success. I am now at a complete loss as to what is going on. I checked all the electrical connections and everything is secure. Cleaned the points. I connected a voltmeter from the starter solenoid to the hot side of the coil. reads full charge with power off, but goes to zero under load. This is what I have found so far. Any more suggestions are GREATLY appreciated. wes
I was cruising my 57 Poncho late one night when it did the same thing. KABAM! and then a dead engine...coasted to the shoulder and wouldn't start. Long story short: my ignition coil took a dump. You say you have no power out of the coil? Got power into it? Well, you might try another coil and see what it does then. That's what I did and mine fired right up! Good luck. Also, follow the wire from the coil into your distributor. I've seen 'em short out on the distributor housing if they're is no rubber grommet in the dist. housing for insulation and act the same way. My money's on the coil tho.....
My fifty quit on me once like that except no boom. I replaced points, condenser and coil and it fired up. But it kept happening (quitting) until I put a ballast resistor in. Somebody else converted it to 12 volts and never put one on. I don't know how it ran as long as it did. I'd check yours. I've had no motor problems since.
I had that happen to a '62 VW, on the freeway of course. Turned out the switch to coil ignition wire had fallen off the ignition switch at the dash. plugged the wire flag back on and away it went.
Got her running again. I'll be back later to post what I did. Have to get her ready for her regular duties again. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. wes
Sounds like you broke the crank and kicked the rods out. I know you fixed it but I had to have a little joke, No?
we'll never hear what it was, we're just the customer support backend for "FLAMED ROCKABILLY POMPALICIOUS SHOEBOX INC." kidding...
Ok, finally I got her back to the way should be. This explanation will hopefully help someone else, as a bunch of little things caused BIG problems. So here goes. The actual problem goes back about a week. Developed hard starting when it was luke warm. Started fine cold and hot ,but drive a couple of miles, drop my daughter off at school, then cuss a few minutes and she would finally start. Then last Mon., It was real cold here again, so I let her warm up with the choke half cocked like always, went into my work to collect my things, and she was dead when I came out. Took a half hour to get her started again. I suspected a fuel delivery problem. When I got home, I let her cool down, Then drain a pint from gas tank to check for sediment. None found. Cleaned out the lines. Emptied the sediment bowl, blew out the fuel pump to carb line, cleaned the carb. Cranked fine, drove a mile or so, turned it off, then it started fine again. Did this several times. All with excellent results. Next morning cranked her up, she ran fine for about 10 seconds then Quit. Would NOT start again. Checked electrical, and everything looked good. Had my lady crank while I checked rotor and points. All good. Then the engine started, sounded like it had a big ass cam in it, then gas started blowing everywhere out of the carb. Every place it could to come out. Needle and seat. piece of trash must have come loose and lodged. Took the carb back apart and put in a new one. Cleaned plugs, checked all wiring. Good to go. Cranked fine. Put some gas in her and drove around a bit. this was Fri. Dialed in the carb and she was sounding so good. But not much oil pressure. But the level seemed to be fine. Went to work, then on my way home thats when the Big Boom happened. You can read the other posts as to what I did. And what it finally was from what I can gather is the piece of bakelite that that is on the dist. housing finally disentegrated away. When that happened, she lost her connection, but then it will naturally try to relight, like popping the clutch. When this happened, It caused an internal explosion. Remember the low oil pressure? There was gas in my oil from the flood. It ignited when the primary sparked, blew up the coil, and exploded inside the engine. Luckily, it happened on an exhaust stroke so it went out the tailpipe. If it had been on the intake, it would have gone through the radiator, and probably taken the head gaskets or some thing worse. The damage that the little piece caused was, burned points, condenser, coil. It also through the timing off Major league bad. After I got her to crank, I shut her back offand immediately went and got some cheap oil, dumped the crankcase and refilled her. Got her home and drained and filled again, as well as changing the filter. twice. Driving 10 to 15 miles each time. I did this to make sure all of the gas was out of the system and to determine if Gas was still blowing by the diaphram and leaking in. It is not. Fuel pump seems to be fine. Oil is clean and not gassy, but after driving her to from work today I checked again. Everything is cool. Finished dialing her in tonight, she is back. I drive her round trip about 70 miles every day. She has always been so reliable. I want to thank everyone that gave their support and helped. I was so rattled after pushing her and have people whizzing by throwing things at me and the police slow down and not stop to help, then get harrassed on my LONG walk home, I couldn't think straight any more. THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL THE HELP!!!!!!!!! I know all the old schoolers from way back know all of this stuff, but this the oldest I have ever had and it definitley has its quirks and things seem deceptively simple. Here are some pointers that I learned this weekend and maybe ya'll can file them away next time your in trouble: 1. Check not only the connections, But if there should be isolation washers. A scrap piece of vacuum hose cut to size with a razor blade works in a pinch 2. Make sure the strap around the condenser is tight and the condenser can't move. 3. If there has been an extreme flood, check to see if it got in your oil, not just the outside of the engine. 4. Unless you can find an old Mom and Pop parts store, know the exact part you want. Most will not give you the time of day and will try to sell you anything. We all have been through that though. Thanks again, wes
" When that happened, she lost her connection, but then it will naturally try to relight, like popping the clutch. When this happened, It caused an internal explosion. Remember the low oil pressure? There was gas in my oil from the flood. It ignited when the primary sparked, blew up the coil, and exploded inside the engine. Luckily, it happened on an exhaust stroke so it went out the tailpipe. If it had been on the intake, it would have gone through the radiator, and probably taken the head gaskets or some thing worse." ???? at least YOU know what happened. cause i sure as fuck don't know what you are talking about. you blew your coil out the tailpipe, not the radiator?
Ugh, it pisses me off when some crappy little plastic part screws everything up When I got my truck back a couple weeks ago I turned the wipers on, and I guess the bottom of the passenger side wiper was frozen to the windshield, so it yanked the linkage off of it. When I tried to fix it yesterday, I found that the whole reason the linkage came off in the first place was that it was held on with some flimsy little piece of brittle plastic that had dissolved away! Luckily the driver's side is still holding on, but just barely. Sigh...
OH! ok... Yeah, sucks when that happens, once a similar thing happen to me, I blew an ignition coil out of MY ASS, couldn't sit down for a week and a half.
[ QUOTE ] " When that happened, she lost her connection, but then it will naturally try to relight, like popping the clutch. When this happened, It caused an internal explosion. Remember the low oil pressure? There was gas in my oil from the flood. It ignited when the primary sparked, blew up the coil, and exploded inside the engine. Luckily, it happened on an exhaust stroke so it went out the tailpipe. If it had been on the intake, it would have gone through the radiator, and probably taken the head gaskets or some thing worse." ???? at least YOU know what happened. cause i sure as fuck don't know what you are talking about. you blew your coil out the tailpipe, not the radiator? [/ QUOTE ] I was wondering the same thing. That description of "what happened" doesn't make a lick of sense to me!
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