Technical Clothspins Verses Vapor lock

So, after driving in traffic today running errands and the car barely wanting to run when the gas heated up a few times, wondering if I should try this and report back? Starting to think that my “plugged fuel filter” was actually just hot gas last Sunday when I swapped the filter out. As soon as I get moving down the road a mile or so, the old 8BA clears right up and runs normal.

 

My racing partner gave them a try on our 429 Ford that would vapor lock on us.

But, he used a bunch of them side by side, lined up like toy soldiers. It seemed to work.

 

The only time my 51 vapor locked was last summer when the actual temperature was above 100 and the heat index was in the outer limits. Only then it was hard to start after sitting in the parking lot @Lowes.

 

The last time I had any old car suffer vapor lock was probably 1994-95. Pretty much all day, every day, just old ****. Packard, Cadillac, Ford, Auburn, 53 vettes, 40s cars, even some earlier stuff now n then. I'm either the luckiest old car guy ever or I just don't know what it is. Ok, I do know, I'm being a ****. Who else has avoided the evil vapor lock? Any ideas as to why? I have my thoughts but I'd like the HAMBgeneers to weigh in and explain how it might be possible.

 

It used to work with US-made clothes pins. The Chinesium ones you get nowadays are sensitive to modern fuel - don't bother.

 

Are you using ethanol blended fuel in the old flatties? I've been using non ethanol blended and have not hyad any problems on the 40

 

I got some that was a 10% blend Friday which could be some of my issue. However, I have been through more than a full tank since. I guess I’ll give it a couple more tanks to see what will happen. Surely, I’ll have that **** washed out by the time I get to Springfield Friday.

 

VooDoo, black magic, whatever. It's not going to make enough difference to ever know if it even slightly worked. And it looks stupid.

 

I thought I was experiencing vapor lock once. Turned out the real problem was a faulty ignition coil.

 

The OEM ones work the best.

 

I need to start looking for some of those. But, knowing things today, they will probably be counterfeit from China…

 

They would be more like counterfeit from my laser engraver. How many do you want? I can do Mercs too! Lol

 

That could be fun at some car shows.
"Get your Ford or Merc OEM wood cloths pins, only available right here. I stumbled on what probably was the last couple boxes of them at a defunct Ford/Lincoln Mercury dealership. Pretty hard to find, but I can hook you up.... A real bargain at only $5 each! Think that's too much? When was the last time you saw them man? They are like, no where around anymore..."

 

I also found some MoPar ones Gene. Are you having any fuel problems?

 

I’m ready………

 

My Mopars don't have problems with vapor lock. I stepped up to electric fuel pumps before the automotive factories did.

 

I worked in several junkyards in central Fla. in the mid 60s and many of the cars that came to us had clothes pins on the gas lines. I never understood the logic of this. I am sure that I had a chip basket of pins in the shop that I removed from these cars.

 

Hey, lostn51;
No, no, no, - those clothspins can't be all in a flat straight line like that, gotta be all at different angles, so's air can get around them. All technique, ya know... . Rumor had it, that old, used, n partly greasy ones were the trick to working. .
Marcus...

 

Funnily enough, this would actually work to insulate your steel fuel line from getting hot enough to boil your juice. But they have to be put on before it gets hot. I have only ever had vapour lock where the steel line was very close to the block, with reduced airflow.

 

I wore an aluminum foil hat and it didn't work either.

 

You must say the magic words before clipping them on or it simply will not work

 

Back to the old drawing board

Kinda like the one I had to figure out to get it to crank this past winter

 

I remember back in the early 60's some old timers swearing the clothes pins worked; and they believed it. However, some of the old timers would show me clothes pins on fuel lines and explaining why they were there. I think that group was having a good time BSing the young guys. An old car dealer once told me the reason he always kept a cooler of cold beer in his trunk was for vapor lock. He said pouring a cold can of beer over the fuel pump worked great. Although I never saw him ever pour out a can of beer for any reason.

 

FrozenMerc had most of the answers back up in Post #12.

Vapor lock occurs when the fuel boils and turns to a vapor. This happens readily when the fuel line runs close to a hot engine, or air flow is poor through the engine bay (think heavy traffic). If this happens on the suction side of the pump, then the pump may struggle to retain it's prime (technically, there may not be enough nett positive suction head to feed the pump). Locate the pump down in trunk, submersed in fuel and it stays cool (you just have to drive a non-HAMB car to do this).

Vapor lock can also happen on the discharge side of the pump. If the needle and seat are shut, the gas vapor being made in the pump discharge line can push the liquid fuel out of the pump (backwards to the tank) and again the pump runs out of nett positive suction head. Some pumps are more susceptible to backflow like this than others.

The aim here is to keep heat OUT of the fuel line, either suction or discharge side of the pump. You DO NOT want a heatsink (like some kinda metal clothes peg), as that would let EVEN MORE heat from the hot engine bay into the fuel line. What we want is some kind of insulator. Wood is a pretty good insulator (the Chinese used it as a heat shield in early space vehicles). A row of clothes pegs acts as a pretty fair insulator. One or two probably does nothing. A length of polyurethane foam insulation would work better still, but was probably not as easily available to Jim Bob back in the 50's.

Why do some people get better results than others? Different setups are probably more susceptible to heat transfer than others. Some times the car is under different test conditions before and after putting the pegs on, and it appears like a cure. Some times the problem wasn't vapor lock, and whatever the real cause was coincided with putting the pegs on (cow magnets may have helped these people too).

Cheers,
Harv

 

I heard about the clothes pin thing before I was 10 years old and usually the pins on the fuel line looked like what lostn51 showed in post 45. When you have that many they probably act as an insulator more than anything else.
In the summer of 1977 when I moved back to Washington from McGregor TX with my 48 with the 283 and way too high of gears pulling a loaded to capacity 16 ft Uhaul trailer we didn't have an overheating problem until we pulled the grade out of Green river Utah and we vapor locked about every 1/2 to /3/4 of mile and would jump out and I would open the hood and my son would grab a couple of pop cups of ice water out of the cooler and we would pour them on the fuel pump and intake and fuel an go again until it acted up again.

That was the major issue outside of running out of gas crossing the horse heaven hills and finding out that the 283 would run on Coleman stove fuel. It took that and a gallon that a guy who was moving to Whidbey Island who was in the Navy to get to the bottom of the hill where we met my mom and brother who brought a couple of gas cans full of gas to get me the last 30 miles.

 

Back when I was in high school I had a 66 El Camino that had a mild big block in it. In the summer we sometimes had some humid and hot nights so when we were out cruising it would vapor lock on me ever so often. I put an insulated moroso cool can on it and whenever it acted up we stoped at the local 7-11 and put a bag of ice in it and cruised all night.

 

Oh no, not those bad words

 

^^^
The Secret Key, is to use them in enough different languages, never repeating the same word in the same language. Where I use to work, there was a fellow that, I was told, if mad enough, could curse n swear in enough different languages to not repeat himself for ~20+ minutes straight. I always wanted to be an ear-witness, never was afforded the opportunity to experience that feat. Although I was fairly impressed, as the guy actually could speak a # of different languages, so... .
Marcus...

 

When I was in my teens we would tried anything the older hot rodders told us would work, I lined up the clothspins like wooden soldiers, did it help? I don't know.

 

Had wooden pins on my 52 Ford vert. Mercury motor. Carried a beer can in the trunk.used it to dip water outa the creek are drains to help the vapor lock. Would have carried a Dr Pepper can. It was not in cans yet.