So I got my 36 chevy truck running perfect a couple months ago. Was having idle issues with it but I took the carb off and cleaned out 77 years of crap a It has never run better. I have put about 800 miles on it with out any issues at all. Yesterday I was driving along when it started stalling out and sputtering. I limped home (luckily!!) and now it will only start for about a half second. I took off the fuel lines and blew them all out, cleaned the fuel filter reset the points and nothing has changed. What are the symptoms of a bad coil? I already eliminated the fuel system being the problem. The carb squirts a nice stream when I hit the pedal. The only thing I noticed when this happened was the amp gauge was reading real high. It usually stays just above the center mark and it was reading almost as high as it would go. If the voltage regulator crapped out I'm thinking it fried the coil or condenser. This is a bone stock truck so I have no idea how old some of this stuff on it is. Anyone in San Diego wanna come play truck repairman? Hahaha!! Sooo..where should I start?
Remove the coil wire from the dist cap and install an old spark plug with the gap opened way up in the coil wire. Lay the plug on the valve cover. Crank the engine. Got spark?
But the spark has to continue. Have you pulled out a plug and looked at the business end? Clean/ white/ deposits ?
Not yet. They are fairly new but I will pull them and check. When this started it would idle OK but wouldn't accelerate without stumbling real bad. Thats why I thought it was fuel related.
Wel I tracked down the problem. The gasket in the top of the fuel filter was so swollen it was cutting off the fuel flow to the carb. I would get just enough to see the accelerator pump squirt and it would fire for about a second then die. Took me a while to figure out. When I loosened the glass bowl it filled up really fast. That was how I figured it out. Its always something
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