Two little problems with my 54 now that I have it back and running.

#1. Going up a hill it backfires and stumbles. I pull out the choke a bit and it runs fine and powers up the hill. My bro in law says maybe I need bigger jets in the carb. Some other guys say I should try a tank of high test gas. Another guy said try the gas additive for ethonal.

What do my friends here at FTE think?

#2. If I try to start the truck shortly after I drove it and the engine is hot, it barely spins. It sounds like the Battery is dead, then it cranks a little faster, then faster, and it will start but at first you think there is no way it will start. I had the starter rebuilt just over a year ago. My BIL asked me if the starter solenoid is getting hot. When we tried to jump the truck the solenoid got hot so we stopped. Would a bad solenoid when it is hot prevent the flow of electricity to the starter?

Thank you in advance.

 

That sounds like something my 64' mustang was doing to me one summer and after checking everything I could think of I found that my timing was off. I adjusted it and it would start and drive just fine afterwards. Don't know how it got out but it was. Lol

 

Abe, after you've reset the points, you need to recheck the timing. Dennis

 

Dennis, how did you do at Beaver Springs?

 

The truck was running good. It's more like a car show and test and tune. For 20 bucks I must have gotten 15 passes down the track. They only ran 1/8 mile to keep the speeds down , because they're real easy on tech inspection.

At the end of the day they have a ride along. Guy's would bring their cars down and you could take a passenger or two for a trip down the track. I even took a girl and her dog for a pass. It was a neat day. I sold 2 "what the heck is a y block" tee shirts that I bring back from Ohio. Jerry Christianson prints them up. Dennis

 

Sounds like a timing issue to me. That's where I'd start looking


Good luck
Bobby

 

On the choke thing, I would take a peek at the spark plugs. The color will tell you if you are overly lean (blanched white color instead of the normal tan color).

If it was running normal before and now it needs to be choked when you run at a high power setting, you may have a vacuum leak somewhere. If you just got it running and don't have a lot of prior running time, then check for vacuum leaks and consider re-jetting to richen it up a little (but only if the spark plugs are telling you to).

Dan

 

I have also had that starting issue turn
out to be the timing off a bit.