Hi guys how ya'll doing?
I havent been on this site for quite some time now...
Any ways, today i was driving my chevy eater(79 f150 4x4 sb st)through my dads fields, and it was running fine.
And as soon as i pull out into the highway, right when i switched from second gear to 3rd, the truck began to boggle down like if it didnt have gas, but i had about half tank still. So i pull over and tunrned off my engine, then i poped the hood, went back into the cab and it started up fine, was also ideling normally. But when id slowly rev up the engine, it would boggle down. I wold try to go off in first gear, then second gear would run really rough, the truck shaked so bad. So i took it home like that, it was about 4-6 miles away from my dads ranch. It ran really bad, like if the engine had no power at all, i was in 4th gear with my foot on the pedal litteraly all the way down, and all of a suden the engine just woke up out of nowhere! As soon as i got home i poped the hood once again and saw that oil was leaking from the pcv breather, also checked the oil and i need to add some?
It runs fine now, but what could of caused this? Maybe bad fuel in the carb? Dirty air filter? Bad fuel pump?
And what can i do about the issue of my oil leaking?

Sorry for righting so much guys...bare with me here...

 

If you have any fuel filters I would check them to see if they are plugged. As for the oil which line is leaking? A picture might help here.

 

Here is a pic of my carb from the outside...

And heres the pic of the oil leak

 

Is the silver cap screwed on tight? How much oil is leaking? And that's the stock carb so on the front passenger side is a fuel filter its round and threads into the front body of the carb it should be like a gold/bronze color and have a small part on it that looks like a hex nut where you can unscrew it. It will have a fuel line entering the front of it held on with a hose clamp. I would check that, I just changed mine today in fact, it was clogged and I have 2 other fuel filters between the pump andfuel tanks.

 

Also suggest you check the rubber fuel lines. They can get soft with age and alcohol and the fuel pump sucks them shut. Shut it off and they "relax" and it runs again for a while.

 

Yeah, I know What filter your talking about, should I remove it and test it? The other day I replaced the line hose with the two clamps, and as for the oil I am not sure, it marked at exactly normal reading, and now it's marking where it said to add oil

 

Also I was thinking about getting those see through fuel filter? Would you recommend it?

 

Ya you have to remove the fuel linf from the front of that little filter then I believe it is a 15/16 wrench to get it off (atleast mine was), to do this you will have to take off the air cleaner on top of the carb, becareful to note where any of the vaccum lines run if you start taking them off. After you unscrew it you can clean it with carb cleaner, spray from the side with threads to the side where the hose was (so backwards from fuel flow) if a bunch of rust and stuff comes out then it was probably clogged up, you can also blow air through it (again backwards) and see if it flows better after you clean it, If this filter is dirty it could be possible that you have some rust and or other gunk in your float bowl, if you want to take that apart I can explain how, but if you aren't familiar with carbs then you can ask someone to help you.

Yes I would definitely get one of those (I have 2 on my 73 since the tank is rusty and I also run 1 on my 78 before the fuel pump. They are so nice because you can see what is clogging them without taking anything apart.

Now there has been some debate over the plastic ones or glass ones, I havent used the plastic because I prefer the glass. The plastic are hard to clean (they are made to be disposable after they clog once) you basicall clean it the same way as the small metal filter we just talked about. The glass ones are rebuildable meaning I can unscrew it all apart, clean out the filter (it's metal and reusable, the plastic filters have paper filters that aren't) then reassemble everything and have a brand new filter, not only does this save money but (and I have done this) if it clogs on the road or on a trail, you can clean it there where as the plastic one you would have to either remove it and try to spray it out and reinstall it, or remove it from the sytem until you can get a replacement (i guess you could carry a replacement but then you have to buy 2 filters to start with)

SOme people say the glass filters are hazardous cause they can break (the plastic ones can break too, and old plastic gets brittle) but I have run these fiters for almost 20 years and never had an issue. I would make sure that it is up and out of the way of rocks and debris of course, I run the first one on my 73 right where the metal fule line turns to rubber (so basically it would sit behind/under your powersteering pump) I'll see if i can find a picture of it.

Here in this picture you can see it on top of the crossmember in the very bottom of the picture it's already partially clogged, to the left the hose clamp on the verticle line is the top of the second filter (it's between the fuel pump and carb, it never gets dirty because the first one works so well)





Here is one that clogged while i was driving.



This was the worst one so far....

 

So I have to remove my Carb to clean it? I checked right now Nd there is a lot of build up in the Carb. Isn't it that I spray at the Carb while the engine is running?

 

To remove the filter you take off the air cleaner not the carb. Don't spray anything at the engine while it's running.

 

Is that the PCV valve in the breather cap? Did you do that, buy it that way or what?

The PCV valve should be in the valve cover, and the line from the aircleaner to the oil fill cap should come from inside the aircleaner or at least the aircleaner housing with it's own filter.

Like so:

Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV)

 

those are a certain kind of breather designed for a pcv install seen many a ford with them

 

Thanks, hadn't seen one or forgot if I did.....

 

So How should I use the Carb cleaner? And I ment replacing my current fuel filter with those plastic see through filter? Or should the glass filter be fine?
And Why do ya'll think oil leaked out through my breather? Should I ignore it and just drop another quart in?

 

Fill the oil to the correct level and then keep an eye on it, make sure the leak doesn't get worse.

As for carb cleaner I was just saying to remove the small filter from the front of the carb and clean it out with carb cleaner. If you think the carb itself is dirty,(the float bowl can easily have rust and debris in it if the filter is dirty) if that is the case then you might take the carb off the truck and clean it. This means digging inside the carb and I would only do that if you had someone who felt comfortable with carburetors help you. Was the truck sitting for a long time before you used it?

As for the filter either see through will be fine they work the same its just personal preference.