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Rough idle and stalling


macc

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And so the questions begin lol. So I just picked up this 63' a few weeks ago and have been trying to get her running smoothly ever since. When I bought the car it started up and drove just fine but after about 5 min on the road she starts sputtering and dies. She'll crank over and over but wont fire up again until it sits for about 10 mins. So I dragged her home and started cleaning her up I took the carb apart and rebuilt it installed new gaskets and the steel heat disapator. ALso she got a new fuel filter and battery. I tuned the carb the best I could (carb tuning has never been my forte) I took her for a drive around the block and still the same thing she wont make it all the way around the block without dying. Now it will run just fine in the begining of the trip and in the garage but the problem seems to be when its in gear and upon acceleration. I've tried tuning it up a few diff times and test drove but still the same outcome. I end up walking home walking back to car and she fires up and drives normaly home lol . It wants to run under her own conditions hahaha. Anyone have any ideas? Here's a few pics so you can see what I'm working with. The motor aint pretty lol

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Welcome to the group!

Does the car have electronic ignition? If so, I would suspect that. It sounds like you have a heat sensitive component there. I have seen it before. When it won't fire up and run, crank it with the coil wire near the block, where you can see if you have spark or not. (Might need an assistant. Easier to see the spark at night.)

If you still have stock points ignition, put in a new condenser. They can also become heat sensitive.

Have you changed the fuel filter? It might be running out of fuel.

Slowly remove the gas cap right after the car dies. Listen carefully for air rushing in. Now go try starting it up. These gas tanks have a vent line (you can see it above the filler neck). Bugs like to make nests in the vent lines when the car sits a long time. The gas cap is supposed to be unvented. If air can't get in, fuel won't flow out.

Those are the easy things off the top of my head. Keep us informed. Good luck!

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Nope no electronic ignition. The cap rotor points and condenser all look new. I changed the fuel filter last week and its one of the clear ones so I can see if its clogged. I'll have to try the gas cap thing. I just adjusted the floats and got a base line. But it wont stay idling longer then a few min it just cuts out and dies. Almost like you turned the key off

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First things first before you start randomly replacing parts...check for spark immediately after experiencing engine shutdown. If you have spark most likely your problem is fuel related. This initial and easy test eliminates 50% of the possible problems (or more!).

If your problem is fuel related it sounds like the filter in the tank pickup (commonly called a sock) is clogged. Try running the fuel pump supply hose from a 5 gallon gas container to bypass the fuel system from the tank forward-be careful! If you find you have isolated the problem a quick fix is to blow compressed air back thru the fuel lines into the tank-remove the gas cap to keep from pressurizing the tank and dont light up a smoke while standing over the filler neck. This will blow away any debris from the pickup tube inlet. Warning-this may also blow off the pickup filter, especially if it is restricted. This may be a problem for the particular but if you are running another filter I have found this does no harm. Did this dozens of times with $50 beaters when I was a kid and it is fast and works! Generally, by the time I ended up with said beaters, there was an all new fuel and ignition system with a few discarded paper carb filters laying about under the hood! Good luck, and welcome to the club!

Tom Mooney

Edited by 1965rivgs (see edit history)
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Are you running without and air cleaner and sucking hood insulation down over the carb when you drive?

Best thing to do is put a dwell meter, voltage meter, spark plug tester, and vacuum gauge in the car. Drive it until is stops and see what ain't happenin'.

I used to service freshly restored cars during the 1990's and the hardest thing to do when the "professional" restoration was completed was to toss the keys to the wife and let her go to the grocery store for a gallon or milk and a loaf of bread.

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Thanks I'll try that this weekend. I dont have much tools at the time just basic hand tools. I'm working on buyin everything AGAIN! That's what happens when you get divorced the wife takes all the tools lol. But I can still check on spark without a multimeter and I have an air compressor so I can blow the lines out as well. :)

First things first before you start randomly replacing parts...check for spark immediately after experiencing engine shutdown. If you have spark most likely your problem is fuel related. This initial and easy test eliminates 50% of the possible problems (or more!).

If your problem is fuel related it sounds like the filter in the tank pickup (commonly called a sock) is clogged. Try running the fuel pump supply hose from a 5 gallon gas container to bypass the fuel system from the tank forward-be careful! If you find you have isolated the problem a quick fix is to blow compressed air back thru the fuel lines into the tank-remove the gas cap to keep from pressurizing the tank and dont light up a smoke while standing over the filler neck. This will blow away any debris from the pickup tube inlet. Warning-this may also blow off the pickup filter, especially if it is restricted. This may be a problem for the particular but if you are running another filter I have found this does no harm. Did this dozens of times with $50 beaters when I was a kid and it is fast and works! Generally, by the time I ended up with said beaters, there was an all new fuel and ignition system with a few discarded paper carb filters laying about under the hood! Good luck, and welcome to the club!

Tom Mooney

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Ok here's a lil update. I still havent gotten the car to run straight but I've been going through the whole system making sure everything is in good working order. I changed out the fuel pump, put a new coil and plugs (the existing ones were fouled up) The cap rotor points and plug wires all looked good. I dropped the fuel tank yesterday and going to get cleaned out at a local radiator shop. So while the tank is out I'm going to just replace all the fuel lines from tank to motor. I followed the return line from the tank sending unit up to the engine bay but it wasnt connected to anything. I'm not sure if it needs to be hooked up or not or where. Maybe this is part of my issue. Hopefully after the tank gets cleaned and with new lines she'll run better

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If your car is a/c equipped, it should have a fuel filter on it with one inlet and two outlets. The center outlet goes to the carburetor and the other goes to the return line to the tank. If you have a glass filter installed, you don't have any way to hook up the return line.

Ed

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Ok yeah its an a/c car any I have a glass filter on it as well. So is nothaving the return line hooked up gnna cause me any problems?

No.

But you want to plug the return line under the hood so that gas vapors don't travel up there.

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No.

But you want to plug the return line under the hood so that gas vapors don't travel up there.

Ok I'll plug it up thanks. I failed to mention that upon closer inspection the wire off the dist. going to the coil had been taped up. I figured this was because the wire must be deteriorating, and might be the source of my problem. So I'm going to see if I can replace the wire and hopefully wont have to take the dist. out to do so. I dont know how hard that is going to be but we'll see. :)

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  • 5 years later...
Guest YumaV77

you are on the right track by replacing that wire. I had the same problem with my 64. The original resistance wire likes to deteriorate considering it is 50 plus years old.

I would pop a coil a week before I replaced that wire with an aftermarket resistor.

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Guest YumaV77

you are on the right track by replacing that wire. I had the same problem with my 64. The original resistance wire likes to deteriorate considering it is 50 plus years old.

I would pop a coil a week before I replaced that wire with an aftermarket resistor. good luck my friend.

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Guest YumaV77

you are on the right track by replacing that wire. I had the same problem with my 64. The original resistance wire likes to deteriorate considering it is 50 plus years old.

I would pop a coil a week before I replaced that wire with an aftermarket resistor. good luck my friend.

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Just reading this,

does this mean the wire running from the points through the distributor body and up to the coil has a resistance value?

 

I have just replaced it with a heavier wire because it seemed a bit flimsy.

 

Anyone put any light on this for a 63?

 

thanks 

Rodney

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                The bat wire to the coil is a resistance wire designed to drop the voltage to the bat side of the coil to 7 volts

so as not to burn up the points. If you stick with point ignition you will need to source resistance wire from a wiring harness manufacturer or you will need to use regular wire and install a resistor block on the firewall like Chrysler did back in the 60's.

A better option would be to use regular wire and convert your distributor to electronic with a Pertronix conversion kit. You can

use 12 volts with the Pertronix.

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My memory on this is a bit fuzzy, but isn't the resistance wire behind the dash?  When the car is starting, the coil sees 12V, provided by a wire running up from the starter.  When the starter is disengaged (ignition switch turned from START to RUN), power to the coil runs through the switch and the resistance wire, which knocks the voltage down to 9V or thereabouts.  IIRC, the resistance wire runs between the ignition switch and the firewall connector.  At some point, there's a connection between the feed from the ignition switch and the feed from the starter (maybe at the engine side of the firewall connector?), with a single wire running from that connection to the coil itself.  If you look at the wiring diagram, it might be helpful to identify which wire serves what purpose.  As I remember, the resistance wire is some funky color (white with orange tracer?).

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