I have a '60 Rambler American, which is the last of the Nash style Ramblers before AMC redesigned the car. It has the original 196 ci flathead straight six, which I'd love to keep, but I just can't keep the stinkin' thing running. I'll start it up and it runs great for around 5 minutes of driving then it just dies. If I try to restart it, nothing happens unless I wait 5 minutes or so. If I wait, it'll run again for another 5 or so like nothing ever happened and then quit again. I replaced the carb early on before I realized it would start up and run good again if it just sat a little, so then I began to think it was an ignition problem like something overheating. The cap and rotor were new when I bought the car 6 months ago and they have maybe 10 miles on them at best. I replaced the coil first, thinking it might be overheating, then after that didn't work, I replaced the ballast resistor figuring that might be overheating the coil. When that didn't work, I replaced the points and condenser. The points did look to be in sad shape, so that needed to be done anyway, but changing those parts didn't help either. It also has all new plugs and wires. What else could I check?
bet the farm you are running out of gas check if thier is fuel in your carb next time it dies could be clogged pickup int he tank or a tired fuelpump that is probably a gas and va***n pump for the wipers or just try to run it of of gas can by gravity feed im betting it is fuel related
I'm thinking fuel supply. What is your fuel pressure after 5 minutes? Can you fill a pepsi bottle in 10 to 12 seconds? Could be **** in the tank clogging the pickup tube. Hold the choke on partialy and see if the engine revs better or worse. Good luck.
Same thing has happened to me on a few cars, usually I replace the fuel pump first and if it still happens then I know its **** in the tank, If the car has sat for a while there can be a layer of varnished gas that can get ****ed around the pick up under acceleration and cause it to quit runnin, or it can be just rust and junk in there. And its getting ****ed to the pick up. then when it stops running the gas slushes around in the tank moving everything away from the pick up which allows it to start up again. Id just go to Walmart and pick up one of those $14 six gallon plastic boat fuel sells, run a hose to it and strap it down in the trunk and run it around for a while, then if it keeps running leave the tank in the trunk and run it, or you could take the stock one out and get it cleaned out and fixed and put it back in.
here is quick way to narrow it down to a fuel pump. I had a plastic tankfrom a go cart, removed the orignal fuel line, making sure it pumps into another fuel can. start the car let it run from the alternate tank, see how long it will run while watching what the fuel pumps does. If the car keeps runnning and restarting, you know its not the ignition, and if the fuel pressure drops its the existing fuel pump/line. Been there done that
I grew up around a Rambler American wagon, my dad (an auto mechanic) would cuss that thing blue, on a long trip it would "vapor lock", and run out of fuel, so I agree with the previous posts, it must be a fuel problem. Clean all lines and filter(s), maybe a new pump, but I would bet that you will find a clogged line, that's why after a few minutes enough gas will get past the blockage to fill the float bowl, and it will run till that's gone. Had a motorcycle with a plugged vent in the fill cap, same type of problem, run fine for a block, then die. Check the cap also. K
Dropped the tank yesterday and today after work I flushed the line and plumbed up my 2 gallon tank to the end with a fuel filter in line. I drove it out of gas and it took about an hour to burn up both gallons, but it never stalled once! After I finished that run (the bast I've had with that car) I proceeded to get all the loose stuff out of the tank by flipping the filler opening down and beating on various parts of the tank with my jack handle. I got about a pound and a half of crusty varnish, rust scale and even small pebbles much like you'd see in a parking lot! I can't believe the car ran at all with that **** in the tank. SO tomorrow I'm taking the tank to get cleaned and sealed and then I'll reinstall it and the Nash will be taking me to work on monday! Thanks for all your help guys!
See if your fuel pump has a removeable bottom section. If it does pull the bolt and see if there is a screen in the pump. If so it will likely be partially or nearly ****ed up. Also if it is a hollow bolt through which the fuel flows between chambers, make sure there is no crud in there. I had a piece in mine that acted like a flapper valve, would allow enough fuel to idle all day, but when the flow went up for driving speed, it would close off choking the fuel flow. Also if there is a rubber line between the frame and the fuel pump, change it. they get gummy inside and will **** down and not permit flow. I changed mine to a piece of steel tubing, cut in half. I offset the cut ends and clamped in a loop of neoprene fuel line to allow for engine rocking and vibration. When you get it back together, pull the line at the carb and direct into a clear container. Pull the coil wire and have some one crank the engine while you count fuel pulses as the pump squirts into the container. 12 pulses should give you 6 to 10 ounces of fuel. Sometimes it aint the pressure its the flow. Also any air leaks on the suction side of the pump are very detremental to flow and pressure.
I'm with the rest of the fellas - sounds like fuel starvation to me. I'm not all that familiar with the 196 flathead but I am pretty good with the 196 OHV which is what I have in one of mine. If your fuel pump is anything like mine it will have a metal canister on the TOP which is held in place with a single screw. Loosen the screw and pop out the filter -most likely it's toast. The other common problem with them is that over time the rubber gasket under the filter tends to expand and can impeed flow. ***uming all that is happening - also make sure you look closely at the fuel p***ages - they will tend to clog up even AFTER the filter - a bizzilion years of gunk and the fines tend to deposit everywhere. Take things apart and clean as needed. You will also have an intank filter - it is "probably" OK but if the previous stuff doesn't work - it's worth a lookie see. I ran into a similar problem with flakes of **** (not rust) breaking loose in my tank - it'd idle fine but die after it emptied the fuel bowl (couldn't keep up when driving - but would idle all day) - these flakes would float around until they blocked the fuel line. Cleaned it - no problem since. Don't give up - those are very reliable motors - rebuild parts can be had for DIRT .........IF you're patient and check Ebay. Also with gas at 4 bucks a gallon - they get decent mileage too.
When I had something like that happen to me years ago, it just about drove me nuts tracking it down. Long story short, it turned out to be that someone had used some clear silicone sealant on the gas tank sending unit. There were little soft gooey globs of half melted sealer floating around in the gas. The specific gravity of the stuff was such that it would sometimes float on top, on the bottom, and drift around in the middle. So it was never predictable as to when it could die. It was almost invisible in the liquid gasoline, and I only found it when light was shown thru the gasoline, and I saw very faint shadows of it drifting around in the liquid. I removed the tank sending un***, the gasket, rinsed the tank and it never happened again. Could someone have worked on your pump, or sediment bowl and used some sealer that should never be near gasoline? ***************************** Once, way back in school days, my brother ran out of gas and used a bent piece of metal as an improvised funnel. He had a problem like that, which turned out to be very small paint chips collecting around the pickup tube screen. It didn't take much to stop the car every few blocks. ******************** Coil getting hot? Resistor giving up and loosing an internal connection when it gets hot? (crimped connector corroded inside between the R-wire and the crimped connector, and no longer trustworthy?)(rivet on the case terminal no longer a reliable joint?) I have seen good looking rivets no longer making good connections to the terminals they hold. That happens on good looking fuse panels too. The connection comes and goes, and is very hard to track down. Condensor too old and failing inside? (occasionally either shorting the points, or refusing to help collapse the coils magnetic field fast enough to "kick" the coil to high enough output voltage) condensors not only increase point life, they also make the coils' magnetic field collapse faster to boost the coil output and make the spark stronger and crisper. Points or distributor with insulation falling off the wire inside? Rubbing anywhere you can't see it? Old plug wires used too long after replacement date? (I have seen a few with an internal gap inside the insulation "tube" of up to an inch or two due to a failure in the old conductors that never gets discovered) ********************** I have even seen a distributor cap or two that were used for so long that they had a film inside that looked like fine rust particles that were evenly "electro-plated" on the inside of the cap. Under the right conditions, that could change from conductive (shorted-out) to non-conductive (running) just by humidity changes. Make sure the inside of the cap is spotlessly clean. AND PLEASE DON'T TELL THIS TO ANYBODY- I have seen an old dirty trick of disabling a car with a carpenters pencil by leaving a graphite trail inside the cap to encourage crossfires. Clean the cap inside and out to remove any deposited film of any kind. ********************* An old girlfriend had a Rambler (could happen to any make), that would not run except on a hot dry day. It was a cracked insulator on a dusty coil.
Yesterday I worked out in the garage all day! I put the rear axle back in my '52 Chevy and then got to work on the Rambler. I bought a gallon of muratic acid and diluted it so that I only used about a half gallon of it in 10 gallons of water. Let me tell ya, even at that strength, it cleaned the tank out so that it was SPOTLESS! I put a new fuel filter on the line and replaced all the old rubber portions of the line with new stuff. The Rambler is back on the road now and runs great! Thanks for all the help guys!
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