25 db sedan dies after 10min

[Guest somekid]

My grandfather left me a 25 dodge brothers sedan but it dies about every 10min worth of driving. He wasnt able to find the problem when he was alive and i havent had time to work on it due to collage. But, the theory for it dieing is a cracked distibuter cap. That when warm moved and opens the cercit. Anyone know about this problem, other factors that could cause this, all help is greatly appreciated.

[trimacar]

My first thought would be that the vacuum tank is just marginally working.  It uses engine vacuum to draw gas from the rear mounted tank, and if it was sort of working, might let you run for a while but at some point not have enough gas to keep you going.

 

I really don't advocate an electric fuel pump on an early Dodge.  The vacuum tank will work fine if properly set up, and the pressure needed at the carb is very little, probably 1.5 psi at most, based on location of vacuum tank and head pressure (3 feet

elevation at 0.5 psi/foot)....

[keiser31]

Sounds like a coil heating up, to me.

[Spinneyhill]

Where is the coil mounted? If on the engine, maybe try moving away from the heat.

[John_Mereness]

coil or condenser  are always good suspects for a line-up

 

[trimacar]

Um, yeah, what they said! 

[Guest somekid]

We also had a gavity feed jug that we put in to take out the vacuum out of the equation same result. Heres a look under the hood

[GARY F]

plug wires on exhaust manifold is a no-no

[keiser31]

Mmmmm....ballast resistor?

[Guest somekid]

This is how it was left to me. My dad and i havent worked on it other than taking vacuum out of the equation as mention earlier. Its been in the garage for 8 years. The only idea we could come up with in our group of friends is the distruptor cap being cracked and expands when warm to lose spark. 

[keiser31]

A bad coil will run for a few minutes, heat up and short out. It will cool off in a few minutes and repeat this over and over. I have had it happen. I sold a 1949 Dodge because of an "electrical problem" and THEN found out what it was.

[Luv2Wrench]

3 hours ago, GARY F said:

plug wires on exhaust manifold is a no-no

Indeed.  There may be additional problems but the plug wires on the manifold is certainly one of the problems.  It appears the one closest to the firewall is burned.  Wouldn't be surprised if it is making contact.  I had a 1994 truck that would die when I went around a hard right turn.  Eventually found out that the coil wire had come loose and would fall against and ground out on the exhaust manifold when turning just hard enough.