'34 only running on 4 cylinders
 

My grandfather bought this truck in 1941 and it has been in the family since. Ever since my grandfather died, we've been having problems with it. We used to have a Stromberg on it, but it kept on leaking and giving us problems, so we put a Ford 91-99 (I think) on it. It seemedto run pretty good for a little while. I had also put new points in the distributor because those were shot. When it started running on 4 cylinders I was going up a hill and it was like a switch, it just started missing. When I got it home I used a timing light on all the cylinders and they are showed that they were working with the light. I then shorted each of the spark plugs out to find out which cylinders weren't running and found out it was the 2 inner cyl on the drivers side and the 2 outer cyl on the passengers side. I'm not sure what to think here because those 4 are fed by the same barrel of the carburetor and they are also on the same "half" of the rotor. We switched the carb back to the stromberg to see if it would run any different, but it was the same. Does this sound like a fuel or spark issue? I just want to get it running good before it gets nice out again. Many thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.

Red

check the distributor cap for carbon tracking. if wires are old, might be a good idea to change them. pull plugs and check that center electrode is not carboned up. should get you rolling.

I just put new plugs in when this started happening. I think they were autolites? I'll check the caps and see what they look like. I'm not sure how old the wires are, not new but not insanely old either. Thanks for the help.

Red

red, have'nt heard from you. how did you make out? is she running?

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a chance to work on it yet. I hope to do it soon, but time will tell. I will post when I get a chance to work on it.

Red

had simular issue with my 48 turns out the bushing in rotor housing was wore out and it would on a few cyls it took me a few days to find it
good luck

I took the wires caps and distributor out of the truck. I didn't see anything askew with the caps, but I think i'm gonna replace them anyways. The rotor does have a little play back and forth. I guess that I may try to get a different distributor, but I'm not sure yet. Thanks for everyones input.

Red

Update. So I got another distributor and was looking at that and got 2 new inner caps. I didn't realize that the 32-36 caps were different than the 37-41 caps. So I took the caps off of the wires and took a look at them and realized there were 2 wires on each side that weren't connected to the brass ends. So I ordered wires and hopefully they will be here in a week or 2. Thank you all for your help and input. I'll update again when I get everything back together .

Red

So I got the new wires in and installed. It still runs on 4 cylinders. I'm getting a little aggravated with it. So I did the wires, ended up changing the distributor and putting the Stromberg carburetor back on. I'm actually kind of depressed because of this thing. Anybody got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Red

I think your right on the cyls which are out of step being fed by the same carb throat.
Are you sure the base gasket is good? The only other thing would be the intake gasket leaking. You may be able to hang a vacuum gauge on it and tell. The only other thing is to pull the manifold and look it and the gasket over, you know its aluminum and it may be burnt thru or cracked. Long time since I pulled one as I remember it wasn;t much of a job maybe 20 minutes. Of course I was young then most likely a half a day at 72. kotzy

The base gasket looks to to pretty good, but i'll have to take another look at it. I think there is a vacuum gauge at my parents house so i'll try to check that. What kind of vacuum should it have at idle? I was thinking about taking the intake manifold off, and see if we have another gasket. Thanks so much for your help

Red

About 17 inches at idle is the norm. kotzy

I took off the rear plug (where the vacuum wiper would be attached) and hooked a vacuum gauge up to it. I got about 8.5-9 inches at 650/700 rpm. It went up to 10 inches at 1000 rpm. I took the vacuum plug out while it was running and it didn't make any kind of difference!? I really don't know what to think. Thanks again.

Red

You have very low vacuum for 600 rpm. Since back in those good old days outside of the wipers and the vacuum brake on the distributor to cause the condition all thats left is the carburator and its gaskets and the manifold. The fact that you have isolated the none working 4 cylinders that bore of the carb and the manifold is all thats left. kotzy

So to make a long story short, i took off the manifold and found the problem. The valve guides were broken on cylinders 2 and 5. Looks like I'm going to need to get the engine rebuilt. Thank you everyone for your advice, I greatly appreciate it.

Red