ive been workn on my 1949 flatty in my 46 ford truck i noticed that the terminal ends on the resistor are very loose im guessing this isnt good. can i just go to the autoparts store and pick up any resistor this style? it have a 12volt conversion also sorry for highjacking your thread
My guess would be your fuel is getting too hot (percolating) once the engine gets hot. This could also explain why the motor runs ok again once it cools back down. Get your fuel lines away from anything that gets hot such as headers, water pump, heater hoses, etc.. And don't put your coil on or against anything that gets hot. Hope this helps.
Thanks again. I have moved the fuel lines so that its not touching anything hot. I'm going to try running the line from the pump to clean gas next. I do have plastic floats. I'll check the sending unit also.
Shouldnt he have a resistor wire and a balast resistor... on a non electronic distributor? Is their cloth on the wire going to your distributor?. Prolly the gas though tank though. Had same problems with my econoline.
I'd check your fuel lines all the way back to the tank. Move them off and away from anything that gives off heat. Heat radiates and anything close to the source will get hot too. I looked at your pictures to see if you had the old style intake that had the heat crossover, but yours didn't. But I did see the fuel line laying on the heater hose and it looked like it was up against the thermostat housing too. Neither is a good thing. Good luck.
I think there are two different coils, one for external resistance and one has the resistor built in it (.6ohm and 1.5ohm); they look the same. I'm wondering if you have an external resistor (ballast resistor, as in photo) with an internal resistor coil. I admit it is a stretch, seems like you've looked everywhere else and i kind of think it is ignition related. Be easy to check if you have ohm meter, with ballast resistor you should have about .6 ohms between the + and - terminals (take the wires off) of the coil.
Ok I won't ask You also said: The truck ran fine for a day or two; I was running with open header for the first couple days, until I put Cherry bombs on. Seems to be lots of tail chassing going on. If I missed something I'm sorry and I'm going to appologize in advance. Q:What do the plugs look like? Q:Truck ran fine with open headers right? open headers like a bit fatter air fuel mixtue, right? Qut chery bombs on and now it runs fine cold till it warms up, Right? Still as original, jetted fat to run well with opens, so as long as its cold engine still likes it fat. Q:The only thing you changed Between good and not good was to add cherry bombs, Right? take them off and see if problem corrects itself. If it does, try some different jets. Q: An engine with no choke should run like***** and need baby sitting untill it warms up and then run fine, Right? An engine with no choke that runs well cold, untill it warms up, then doesn't run is jetted to fat, getting unmetered fuel, or has the air restricted, period. It very well could have other issues but the above is one of them. The other ideas about vapor lock and electrical problems, fuel starvation ect, are all very valid but I didnt see the issues that I mentioned adressed. When a new problem shows up, go back to the last thing you fixed. Hope this helps, good luck
Just thought of an easy check for this idea of mine, rig a vacuume hose from the manifold into the cab, When it starts running bad/warms up give it a small vacuume leak and see what happens.
You say it ran fine intil you put the cherry bombs on? Where do they exit? Next to a metal fuel line? I had a metal fuel line come loose and lay on my exhaust. I could drive 65 and car ran fine, but when I got in traffic or sat at a light it would vapor lock. It acted just like what you have. If the exhaust is blowing on a fuel line, or the line is anywhere close to the exhaust it will vapor lock. The heat from the radiator can also cause vapor lock, you might try wrapping the fuel line with insulation.
31Vicky has good advice. Remember some coils have built in resistor, You cant run a coil resistor and an in line resistor, you won't have enough voltage
If you suspect a fuel starvation problem or vapor lock, spray some carb cleaner or starting ether in the carb when it is acting up. If it suddenly starts for a second then you might be on the right track. If no change then it's probably electrical in nature. I once had the same problem when warm it would not start. Yeah lots of people said it was vapor lock. I tried the clothes pin trick and the tin foil trick...nothing. An old timer watched me crank it for several seconds and said it's the coil. He said watch this...he went into the garage and brought out a CO2 fire extinguisher. He blasted the coil until frost built up on it. He said try it now and it started instantly like it always did when cool. The first thing that I would do is replace the coil with a known good coil.
The vapor lock issue is easy to troubleshoot. If you're running a hard line to the carb remove it and run a longer than normal section of fuel hose from the fuel pump to the carb away from any heat source. As far as the ballast resistor (If you are running one) you can bypass it and run the car to see if it still shuts down. If not, you have a bad one.
there is no external ballast resistor. I put a new coil on. How do I know if there is one in the coil? Fuel lines are away from heat. I'm going to try the clean gas jug, then remove Cherry bombs next. Thanks again for all the advice.
Beat me to it.... When hot, as soon as it dies and WONT start back up, a shot of carb cleaner will tell you if its a fuel problem.... Also, I have a plastic boat gas tank from wal-mart... works great whenever testing suspected fuel tank trash problems....
Of course you can also check for spark from the coil when hot.... Also, this is good for tracing electronic thermal problems! http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102648
Problem fixed! Junk in the fuel line inside the tank! I can't stress enough to check the basics! Some of you guys where right. If I did that first, I would not have had to go through a bunch of other*****. Thanks to the power of the HAMB!!!!!
Yup - this was what fixed mine - lines were fabbed to close to the exhaust manifold and middle plennum (sp?) on the intake as well.
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