For the past two weeks I've been scratching my head trying to diagnose a fuel problem on my '67.

It started just after I rebuilt the stock Autolite 2100 for my fresh 390 with a hesitation and a miss just off idle, and general poor cold performance unless fully choked.

Checked the float and double checked. Checked choke pull down and double checked. Same for idle mixture, and potential vacuum leaks but still no dice.

So I'm about ready to take a hammer to the carb, but I need fuel so I had down to the gas station. I take off the gas cap, and low and behold there's the problem. Apparantley the gas tank had built up a decent amount of pressure, physically forcing the cap off the filler neck when unscrewed.

Well, wouldn't you know it all the hesitation and missing has been cured. Two weeks spent tweaking and fidling with that darn carb and all I had to do to fix it was unscrew the gas cap.

So anybody else have similiar experiences? Spend weeks trying to fix something that could have been easily solved in a matter of minutes?

 

years ago i had this el camino,( i was young forgive me ford god)
after rebuilding the engine twice in one month (thats another story altogather) replacing the tranny 3 times ( yes yet another story) i was finally going to start enjoying all the hardwork i put in, well first time on the throttle the car shut off after 1/8 mile. Then it would come back to life about 30 seconds later. Regular driving this did not happen at all. So for the next 2 months i tore apart the carb and replaced everything i could think of. i was kinda perplexed, i had friends look at it, i had a speed shop run it on there dyno thing and try and get it to do it again, but they never could get it to do what it did for me everytime i tried to get on it. And yes i replaced the tank. So i gave up the idea of ever getting a good time at the local dragway park. fianlly i found a spot of rust in my bed starting to come thru so i decided to fianally get around to removing the old undercoating and redoing it. as i was under the car getting the old stuff off, i found a small section of orignal steel fuel line i never replaced, i didnt see any gas leak or anything, i finished the job, installed new line and went to get on it as i was heading out to the mall to pu my girlfriend. At the usual point she would shut down she just kept going, turns out on closer inspection of the 12 inch fuel line i replaced there was a hairline crack, it wouldnt leak gas, but when hooked up to the compresser i found out it would let air in. So i was getting a air bubble in my line when i was getting on it that was causing my car to shut down and when the air bubble passed it would come back to life. 2 months and 1400 dollars in parts later, oh and by the way, i got a 11:49 1/4 mile at about 132 if i remember right.

 

i got a vaccum on my gas tank when i put locking gas caps on it to keep my phyco A$$ ex girl friend from messin my truck up. it ran really bad really really bad. and i turned off the engine and i hear a hissing sound comeing from the tank.

its not as cool as opiewans story but i like it

 

the other story involves the engine, we built the first one and it lasted two weeks, then the knocking started. So tore it apart and the bearing were all fried. Now i am no expert engine builder but i do know how to assemble an engine withen pretty close specs. So 700 dollars later got it back togather and never had a problem with it again. But never figured out what happened to the first one. A year goes by, we are sitting in my friends dads bar talking about that engine. His dad overhears us and asks me when it was that all this happened. I told him when and he kinda smiled and walked away. Five minutes later he walks up and hands me a free beer and drops a stack of 20 dollar bills on the counter. I was like what is this for ? He explains to me that he remebered everything now and what happened was this. He came over to the garage to do some work on his 57. Well he saw my engine sitting there just covered by a large towel ( i didnt have the oil pan on yet, but it was complete ready to put back in) He then started doing some sandblasting on his project. He cleaned up but never thought about my engine. So the next weekend we went to finish, flipped the engine over put on pan and threw it in without even thinking about looking inside close. So there you got it, 1 engine full of sandblasting sand = 1 engine full of toasted bearings. I gave him back the money though. i should have put the pan on before we left .

 

It was the first year of the 60's. Our shop class in high school was composed mostly of fellers that were waiting to drop out of school first chance they got. It was a small high school where you actually knew everyone in school. We were a poor community and the tools we had to tinker with in shop class reflected this, mostly hand saws, a token set of wrenches and claw hammers, the type of which the claws fly off if you should pound to hard. We made mostly bird houses and seems we were graded not on our wood craft but how well we concealed out mistakes with wood putty. Any way, one day the teach anounced that a farmer was going to donate a vehicle for us to work on. Namely, overhaul the engine. But not to worry, said the teach. I and the farmer will see to it that we procure all the specialized tools we would need for the project. Upon hearing this, most of the would be dropouts decided to stick aroung as this could get exciting. Things were looking up. The shop even had chain hoist at the far end. I often pondered it's reason for being and decided that it must have been used in the past when much bigger bird houses were constructed in this shop. One monday morning, we were greeted by a Jeep station wagon. (Would like to have that now).
We never had any real class time studying the automotive engine or any other engine for that matter. Our teacher was from the old school and firmly believed in hands on instruction. That he did. He had perfect control over the class. He described in detail every aspect and part function as we went along. Making sure that the least of us understood what we did and what we were going to do next. In the course of a couple of months we felt knowledgeable and proud of the of our accomplishment. The crank was in and the piston/rod assemblies were now to be put in. About the time the third rod and piston were installed. the teacher decided we could finish the fourth and final assembly without supervision. It is here that the project went bad. We lost half of the last rod bearing. We looked all over the place for it and finally Eddie J. says we dont need the dang thing. So he gets out his knife and cuts off a chunk of his leather belt. and after a bit comes up with a neat strip that fits perfectly where the bearing half should have been. We slapped it together and never told the teach. Later when we first ran the engine wierd glances were exchanged amoung us. But I got to say it sounded allright. It got driven back to the farmer,(15 miles or so), and he was pleased with the job. I don't really know how long the leather bearing half lasted.