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1929 DeSoto Stewart-Warner vacuum fuel pump


seando

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My vacuum tank Epiphany: I was on a VMCCA Nickel tour driving my 1928 Chrysler. I happened to be the last tour car when I got stopped at a railroad crossing on some quiet back road. As I sat waiting for the train to pass, the vacuum tank refueled causing the engine to stumble a bit. Here I was alone with a 60 year old car that wasn't running the best and no one around to help if the old beast died. What was I to do? About that time the train passed the crossing and the vacuum tank refilled causing the engine to smooth out.The crossing guard and lifted I thought to myself "Well, we have gotten this far, let's see if we can make it to the end of the tour. We did. Afterwords I did investigate the vacuum tank to find out exactly how it works and how to fix it. If you are going to own one of these old beasts you had better know how it operates and how to fix it. The "technicians" at the dealership aren't going to be a lot of help. Zeke 

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Well done, your perseverance paid off and you have given others a unique insight into the black art of vacuum tanks. 

 

Now go find a big hill and see if you can make it to the top without running out of gas, if you can achieve that go home sit down and have a beer or two. ??

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On 03/03/2018 at 10:09 AM, seando said:

I wonder what yellow is? It is a straight pin hole to the vac line from manifold. I have it capped off.

 

All quiet here so I assume everything is fine, still scratching my head re the unidentified "yellow" port in an earlier thread and then I came across these items, courtesy of the Dodge Brothers newsletter some years back (a gold mine of information for Dodge owners).

 

So its purpose in life is to increase the vacuum force (booster). This enables a greater pulling power for fuel from the rear tank and is particularly helpful for high throttle openings when going uphill etc. which reduces the risk of running out of fuel in the reservoir under such conditions.

vac booster 1.jpg

vac booster 2.jpg

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Years ago a club member asked my dad to help him set the idle jet on his car.  Dad set the idle nice and slow and then all of a sudden the engine really slowed down almost dying and dad quickly adjusted the idle a little higher.  With that we sat back and was happy with the idle speed of the engine.  All of a sudden the engine sped up to a faster idle, so dad again adjusted the idle jet to slow it down.  He then looked on the firewall and noticed the vacuum tank and realized when the tank needed refilling, it took some vacuum and slowed the idle.  Yes, your engine will slow down when the vacuum tank is being filled.  Similar to driving up hill in the rain with the wipers on and you have vacuum wipers.  At this situation you may not have sufficient vacuum to run the wipers.  You may have to let up on the throttle (and slow down) to get the wipers to work (or downshift) and then give it the gas to get up the hill.  Understanding what is going on under the hood really helps.

Don A

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hchris, thanks for the valuable information on that fitting.

 

I wonder why the Chrysler engineers took the vacuum from the manifold instead of of the oil pump like they did on the 28/29 Plymouth?  May be different oiling system on the 6 cylinder vs 4.  Never want for vacuum/gas going up steep hills with this Plymouth setup.  The wiper, on the other hand, comes from the manifold and it can be sluggish, as we all know.

 

 

Oil Pump1.jpg

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Well it seems the move to change vacuum source from manifold to oil pump came fairly late in the evolution of vac units, so I can only guess this was a means of overcoming loss of vacuum with large throttle opening. It wasn't much later that mechanical fuel pumps became the norm and the problem disappeared. 

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Yes the vacuum force is all about throttle position, the more you open the throttle the less vacuum you have, so there is a contradiction here in engine efficiency with these systems, the amount of fuel you have stored in the vac tank gets less and less the wider you open the throttle.

 

Giving it more gas to get up the hill will only make matters worse.

 

 

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On 9/03/2018 at 10:59 AM, old car fan said:

Did dodge and Desoto switch in 28 /29,my book somewhat shows it

If you mean when did they switch to mechanical pumps...

Dodge 1930: DC, DD, DE, DF first with AC fuel pump.

De Soto 1930: CF, CK.

 

If you mean switching brands of vacuum tank, Dodge 130, 131, 140, 141. 2252, DB, Domestic DA and some export used Kingston tanks. Models before these used Stewart Warner and some export DA had SW tanks. Some 130, 131 and 2252 also used SW tanks for foreign orders.

Edited by Spinneyhill (see edit history)
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3 hours ago, seando said:

I can't seem to imagine how that works. I guess something changes as your going up the hill. 

 

 The fitting has an inbuilt venturi fed by the hole which you have blanked off. The venturi is designed to create an even bigger (atmospheric) pressure drop for the vacuum source at the top of the inner tank, which in turn will lessen the effect of manifold vacuum drop as you open the throttle; particularly helpful if you have a long uphill drag.

 

Of course this is really only beneficial when you have a inlet manifold source of vacuum, its therefore unnecessary with an oil pump vacuum source which increases vacuum with oil pump (engine) rpm.

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