So the other day I replaced my carb on my 61 falcon and when reinstalling the fuel filter and line I noticed it was on a slight different angle. Anyways all was well untill today and then I noticed a small fuel leak at the hose conecting the hard and rubber fuel line together I assumed the clamp wasnt tight enough adjusted it and it stopped leaking . Well today on the way home from my fiancees house I had a quarter of a tank of gas and noticed it was going down pretty fast. Im stopped at a light and the guy next to me says your car is leaking really bad! I said ok and drive off looking at the puddle left behind on the ground. The next light I get the strongest smell of gas and noticed my gas is dropping even faster! well you guessed it my fuel line nere the carb busted but not enough to make me stall. I knew the safe thing to do would be stop the car and get a ride to autozone to grab another tube but im going uphill over the freeway brisge so theres really no where to stop. with luck I made it over the bridge and to auto zone as the tank went empty. I had my lady with me and im guessing my shit could have caught on fire or worse yet blown up. WOW next time I wont wait and fix something like that without driving it.
so you saw a fuel leak and didn't fix it right away. Natural selection or the survival of the fittest in action.
LOL well I didnt explain it all. The leak was coming out where the rubber and hard line connected right before the carb I assumed the clamp wasnt tight enough adjusted it and it stopped leaking. When we were at the light the line busted in the middle. the first leak wasnt where it busted at but thinking about it now maybe it was a sign to get it replaced at that time.
Worked for Ford for many years and saw lots of carb fires. Get a fuel filter from 83 Escort and hard plumb the line from pump to fuel filter. No more problems!!!!!
Um so if its just you thats one thing...but you had the missus with you hombre. If you are gonna take momma along make sure she can either point an extinguisher or FIX IT THE RIGHT WAY. Glad youre ok....
for sure! I sold the Merc about a year ago. I didnt have the funds to keep the project going and it needed alot of work that was way out of league. I miss it but its in findland now so no chance on getting it back.
Here's a quick related story to make sure you check EVERYTHING! My dad bought a '62 Olds F85 convertible a few years back. Bought it sight unseen and had it transported from Rescue, CA to his home in St. George, Utah. Quickly looked everything over and it all looked great. Two weeks later we do a 'club cruise' about 50 miles out of town for a burger. After lunch he stays behind with my uncle and two daughters in the car. Time to catch up, right? Pull out of the burger joint and gets on it a little... thinks "Hmmm... I smell gas." Then says "HOLY SHIT I SMELL GAS!!!" He immediately backs off the throttle and heads for a gravel road directly in front of him. BOOM! The car catches fire and is burning before he gets it stopped. He jumps out and grabs both of my daughters, pulling them out over the trunk lid. Good thing the top was down! My uncle jumps out of the passenger side and torches his leg pretty good, first and second degree burns from his toes to his knees. He's the only one hurt. The car was a total loss, but insured. So what lesson was learned? We learned to VERY carefully check EVERY safety item on a 'purchased' car. Once we got the car back home we began looking at what could have possibly happened. The best we can figure (and we're pretty sure we're right) the fuel line entering the carb didn't have a clamp on it. When he got on it, fuel pressure increased and blew the line off of the carb. Motor still running it sprayed raw fuel all over under the hood and caught fire. So whose fault was it? The previous owners? Maybe, but we sure as hell should have investigated it ourselves! A very close call! Guys (and gals), don't forget to check your fuel and brake lines regularly! PLEASE!
Definitely a close call! Especially putting out enough fuel to puddle under te car! I was driving my '56 Austin Healey home from school one day when I heard a "hissing" noise. Couldn't really place it, kept driving for a little bit. And with dual SU's you can just about always smell a little fuel. But this is bugging me, so I pull it over and shut it down. Open the hood, nothing. Everything looks normal, no fuel dripping, no stains, no puddles. Hmmm. Tell my brother to turn the key back on (stock SU electric fuel pump). Instantly figured out the issue, a small jet of fuel was spraying out of the joint at the bowl and the dual feed line banjo connecting the SU's (crappy fiber washer). The hissing noise? It was spraying directly onto the exhaust manifold, where the fuel was boiling, and evaporating (hiss!). I'm not sure I've ever moved so fast as when I turned the key back off! Quarter turn on the banjo bolt and viola! Leak stopped. But man oh man, seeing that pressurized fuel boiling off the manifold, what a heart stopper. I changed the gaskets when I got home, but those banjo style fuel lines always were a pain on the SU's, never seemed like you could get the banjo's flush with the bowls on both the carbs at the same time, and with the washers it was always kind of a "touch" deal to get the banjo bolt tight enough so it wouldn't leak without either crushing the washer too much (and making it leak) or stripping out the top of the bowl. And of course if you drove the piss out of the car the banjo bolts would occasionally back off and need to be re-tightened. I always carry a fire extinguisher in all my cars. At least if its a small fire I'll be able to put it out or at least knock it down until the fire dept. can get there.
funny thing is it really doesn't matter new or old fact is it happens. when my parents owned a grocery store i watched 3 new cars at different times burn up, 2 of them were on the way home from the dealerships.
You're extremely lucky. You might as well throuw the fire extinguisher in the garbage, if you have a fuel fire. Small ones are only good for a 5-10 second blast...not nearly enough if you've got a gasoline blaze going. I know....I worked in research and engineering for a gas company...had to put out 4 or 5 car fires during my 15 years there. Even simple ones were hair-raising! We trained on gasoline fires, but even a bir 2 foot tall extinguisher is barely enough to contain one...and most likely it will re-light just from the resudual heat of the parts that were on fire! Lesson...do NOT fool with leaking gasoline on a running car! It WILL get out of control faster than you can think! BTW, one of the fires was caused by a guy checking for vacuum leaks...fumes from the carb cleaner he was using probably got too close to the distributor, and ignited. He just froze when it happened. It's a common practice, but I've stipped using carb cleaner, and use just water to spray surfaces looking for leaks.
Only once did I not fix a fuel leak right away, and that was a slow drip from about halfway up the line under the vehicle because I knew if I tore into it I was going to have to do the whole damned line front to back - and I was right. It's not too difficult to hardline a carb, you can buy short pieces of tube with ends ready to go right in the parts store. A carb motor will run on the fuel in the bowl for a few minutes even if there's no fuel line connected to the carb at all, which is plenty of time for your fuel pump to spray gas all over the place.
Jeeze George! That's an eye opener! Sorry about that, but glad there wasn't any bad endings! How is the new carb working on that thing?
Hey jeff, Its not your fault so no worries. The carb is ok I think it needs to be adjusted. It's still stalling after a drive on the freeway and sputtering sometimes.
This reminds me of an incident I had. I bought a 56 Chevy truck, got it legal and took it for a drive. A block from my house, I started smelling gas and poof, flames came through the firewall where the heater used to be, causing me to have to pull my legs up to avoid getting burned (I was wearing shorts and flip flops). I turned off the engine and stopped in front of the first house I could, ran to grab their hose (luckily they had one), turned the tap on full and ran back to the truck. The hose just reached. I then opened the hood and poof again, no more hair on my hands either (now it had some air). I started hosing it down and just when I thought it couldn't get worse, the starter wire must have burned through and come to rest on the battery post, causing it to turn over, pumping more fuel everywhere (could have been even more comical if the truck had been in gear). It also was now trailing under the truck and down the gutter, still burning. I finally managed to get it put out and surprisingly, the only real damage was burnt wiring. The cause was a POS glass filter that decided to come apart. The funny thing is, I never like using them myself and the guy I bought the truck from had been driving it for a while without any problem.
it's stalling after "high speed" driving? Did you keep the auto choke? ...is it stalling with the pedal pressed or at a stop
Yeah like driving on the freeway for 20 mins and getting off it will normally stall out when I come to a stop. Then it will start to sputter when I try to go. I got the same carb just new / rebuilt.
My 57 Pontiac was torched from a fuel leak at the carb while the previous owner was driving it. The car had 4 parties against it to send it to the junkyard. I'm sure there are still people who would like it better there but the car tells an important story. ROUTINE MAINTENANCE AND SAFETY CHECKS.
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