Been working on this 81 f150 lately... would love if someone could help me out.

 

Central Texas is big... Where in Central Texas are you?


Timothy

 

What Tim said. What part of central TX are you talking about?

 

It takes longer to drive across "central Texas" than 48 of the 50 states!

 

I live in killeen.. What about yall?

I've actually been having problems adjusting my carb on this 81 ford f150 that i recently bought... Would be nice for someone to show me how to get it adjusted right.

 

I'm in Abilene so I can't help. Might check the members map at the top of the forum and see if there's someone close by.

 

Well I have good news and bad news: Good news => I live right outside Killeen in Salado and I work in Killeen at Tx195 and Clear Creek but... Bad news => I don't know squat about how to adjust carbs.


Sorry, but I am no help.


Timothy

 

Jimbo,

Another thought... What engine and what carb? I have a friend in Temple who is into rat rods and I believe he has tuned a carb or two in his day.

Give me more details and I'll ask him.

Timothy

 

I have an 81 ford f150.. With a 302 and an edelbrock 750 cfm. It idles like a champ, and I can drive it if I give it just a little bit of gas.. but if I try to open her up, it starts backfiring out of the exhaust.

But maybe you could come by and help me someday? I still need to fix my emergency brake, and replace my gas gauge float...

 

Excuse me for my double post. I went to change all my of spark plugs the other day, and my headers are stopping me from taking 2 of my spark plugs out..I was going to just take my headers off, but the pipes are stopping me from removing the bolts.......what the heck.

 

Alright... I finally figured out how to adjust my floats. and I think I got them about right....But now My truck wont even start... I think there is a wire grounded out somewhere. Even after I turn the key off, it will still try to turn over.

 

Good news guys! I messed with the floats, I don't think I have them exactly perfect.. But now it no longer backfires. I'm pretty happy about it. Now my problem is, when I give it full throttle, it doesn't really make a difference. I mean, it picks up speed slowly, but when I floor it, I expect it to move. What could the problem be? Maybe my downshift cable isn't hook up right?

 

Well, I know this hasn't been touched for a few days, but I thought I'd toss out some information.

The good news is that you have a great carb there. It's easy to work on, it's easy to adjust and it is about as reliable as a carb can be.

The bad news is that it's a carb, it isnt tuned well for your engine size (no matter WHAT engine size you have, IMO) and you probably have NO clue what things may have been done to it in the past.

To properly tune it you'll really want to get yourself air/fuel gauge. There are all kinds of tricks that "Old timers," use, but...those guys only had the vaguest idea of how things in there worked...tuning "by ear," or smell or whatever is a good way to have reduced power and mileage despite whatever whacky anecdotes you've heard. Now that carbs have fallen out of favor with most engine manufacturers and car dudes, the knowledge of them is kind of failing. Luckily for me, I like old **** and in my line of work, carbs are still big news...so I know a little about how they work...

ANYHOW. You adjusted floats and saw an improvement. That suggests that it would be worth your time to yank the thing off, grab your favorite maintenance manual (much like the one here) and re-set everything in there, paying attention to what rods, primaries, secondaries and metering orifices are involved with your situation.

As for your lack of acceleration...could be quite a few things. Limiting it to the carb, try moving your pumpshot to the lowest setting...which is the hole closest to the carb body. See if you have any change at all. The line of thought of "More fuel is better fuel," tends to be a huge detractor from carb-derived power in my experience; and your carb is probably running pig-rich...

Also...if your kickdown lever or cable isnt adjusted properly, it'll feel sluggish no matter what. So...find a thread and check on that.

Once you get your O2 sensor, should you choose to do so, you can really start to see where youre rich (which will be most RPM ranges, likely) and lean. And you'll be disappointed by just how little fuel control you really have with a carb...