Anything new to report? Did everyone survive being sick?

 

February was a bad month overall, my father in law died 2 weeks ago (We knew it was coming, he had all the cancer) but it's taken a toll along with my friend being sick and then today this nonsense is happening.

Lousy Smarch weather

​​​​​​​I ended up ordering an electric choke but it hasn't arrived yet and I'm so sick and tired of snow I don't think I'm going to put a lot of time in until the bloody stuff melts.

 

Awwww. Sorry about father in law. Doesn't matter if it's expected or not, it is never easy. My condolences to you guys.

Snow.... I wouldn't mind having ONE of those storms per year. But yeah, I wouldn't even think about working on truck. I bet where you are it is exceedingly cold as well. About coldest it ever gets here is maybe 10* F. And that drives us all inside till it passes.

I won't tell you that It was 85* F yesterday when I was driving home from a trade show at the beach.

Be sure to post up when you get back on truck. I'm interested in the electric choke if it's the full electric. I have the electric helper on mine and it does help. But full electric would allow me to get rid of the tubes running up the side of the engine. Just a little cleaner presentation.

 

It's about -10C here today and might be -2C on Sunday so I "might" go work on it then. Yeah it was a rough 5 days or so, other peoples sadness does a number on me even if I'm not sad myself so I stayed busy helping around their hobby farm. We're going to go check in on his widow (not my wifes mom) at the end of the month and I'm going to teach her son how to stick weld cause he wants to learn so he can help around their 20 acre place.

This is the kit I ordered, it specifically mentions capping the hot air line so I hope it works as expected. https://www.carburetor-parts.com/Ele...12_p_4421.html
I'll definitely check in once I know more, I try not to denvercoder things I learn.

 

That is the kit I want to know more about. So hopefully we can follow along with that installation.

Good luck with everything else. Weather, family, etc.

Wish someone would have taught me to weld anything properly. Mine welds were never good. Serviceable, but not good.

 

Weld properly might be a stretch, I grew up farmer welding. Just turn the heat up until it sticks. However I can make rather nice welds so it's something.

Thanks eh.

 

Sorry for the delay in the updates, we had a couple buddies who legit know what they're doing help us last weekend and we didn't get it running. So I said screw it, replaced the plugs and wires cause that was all that was left. This morning we double checked 10BTC and I was 180 degrees out on the distributor. Fixed that, touched the starter and it fired up like a champ! Kind of embarrassing to have it be that simple. I have no idea where my parts guy found Prestolite plugs but they worked like a hot damn.

We managed to drive it a few blocks, fill the fuel tank and putter around but it really struggles when we hit the gas so I suspect we aren't quite there yet. A friend who has a Lincoln Battleship has a Megasquirt he's offered to let me install on it so I may swap that old YFA carb out despite my original protestations. The truck idles like a champ, but it's not quite there yet. I should have done it sooner, but there was literally 3" of ice water under it for months and I got hit by the VID in April so I've been moving slow.

Anyone have any suggestions on tuning fuel that sputters and mildly backfires when you punch it?

Edit: Also figured out what the purple wire I tied the electric choke into does. It's the brake light on the dash, it was on all the time until I unhooked the choke. So that's something I'll have to figure out.

 

I dont know why people have such issues with the 300 six and YF carb, not running right, no power?
My 81 runs great with the stock YF carb, I am running EFI manifolds but it ran great to move it around before installing them.

Was the motor up to temp?
The "sputters and mildly backfires when you punch it" sound like the accel pump is not working.
The YF carb has a funky hose in the float bowl that ties the accel pump in to the passage that squirts fuel into the carb.
It is easy for this hose to come off, split or get kinked.

Pull the air filter off, hold open the choke so you can look down in the carb and move the throttle.
You should see fuel squirt down into the carb if not you need to pull the top off the carb and check that tube if connected or kinked.
If you have not rebuilt the carb you may want to pick up a rebuild kit, only a few bucks, and a few cans of carb cleaner.
Pull it apart, clean it good and blow out the passages and put it back together with new gaskets.
It cant hurt how it is running now.

The intake & exh manifolds are bolted together and there is a valve that changes as the motor heats up.
This valve points hot exh gases to the intake floor to heat it up to help the gas / air mix stay a vapor.
Sometimes (most) gets rusted and gets stuck either open or close and can cause problems.
Open no heat to the intake floor and the fuel will drop out of the air.
Closed heat all the time to the floor and cause run issues over heating of the fuel / air and lack of power.
You running the factory air filter assy?

On the timing, 10 BTDC is better than the factory of think 6 BTDC but you may want to bump it up more.
I have mine at 14 BTDC and may bump it back to 12 BTDC because I do get a little pinging.
Is the mechanical & vacuum advance working on the dist.?
If not that can cause poor running issues.
Dave ----

 

The motor was as up to temp as I can judge, we drove it for around 20 minutes to get fuel and try accelerating. The carb had been rebuilt by a high school near the previous owner and I thought I rebuilt it correctly afterward but I am seriously thinking I'll take it apart again and be very thorough.

I'll have to hunt that valve down as I didn't know about it. The air filter is factory when we are driving it, I ultimately intend to replace it with something less blocky but I want to get the truck running first. The sticker on the front of the truck indicated 10*BTDC so that's what I did and it fires up immediately. I've attached a quick youtube of it idling, need to get more video of it in drive.
Picture below is where I have it set.

Notch is on 10

 

Did this truck sit not running and if so how long?
Is it running a cat before the muffler?
No power could be a plugged exh system like a cat or a baffle coming loose in the muffler.
If sitting for a long time something making a home in the exh / muffler could also plug it.
If you can drop the exh before the cat and take it for a spin to see.

Do you have a vacuum gauge you can put on the motor?
What is it at idle and if you bring the RPM up and hold it at say 2500 RPM?
Dave ----

 

Glad to hear from you again and happy to hear good news on truck. I would follow Fuzz's tips. The stock carbs work well when built and adjusted correctly. Don't give up on it yet. You will encounter other issues seeing up a new carb.

Keep going.

 

The newer ethanol fuel starts going bad as soon as you pump it. Let it sit over 6 months and it doesn't run that well in the engine. Over a year and it can hardly be called fuel. I would put new fuel in it and keep running it.

 

The truck sat for an indeterminate number of years before I started working on it so it's entirely possible the fuel is sketchy, we put 40L into it yesterday but it might not have burned everything off. I just saw the dropping the muffler to test, we can rev it when it's in park and it revs reasonably well so I am not sure the muffler is plugged. I don't have a vaccuum gauge unfortunately though I can probably track one down, if I gently rev the engine it will maintain a high rev but if I put it to the floor it doesn't rev any higher. Also if I put it to the floor without building up in park it will stall.

 

I pulled the carb and went through it last night with a fine tooth comb. Visually it all checks out but in testing today the idle screw doesn't seem to do anything at all. The truck only runs if we keep the throttle cracked open a bit and will stall out if we dont regardless of what I do with the idle screw. I ran a piece of wire through all the lines related to it and everything "seems" fine but it doesn't do what the documentation I can find says it should. A buddy has an ultrasonic parts cleaner I'm going to put it all in and see if maybe there is something gummed up in it.

I'm also ordering a vaccuum gauge as soon as I figure out what a good one is.

 

The idle screw will not have any effect if you can't get the rpms down and the carb throttle close to being closed. Look down the carb throat as the engine is running. If you see liquid fuel, the float level is too high and its dumping fuel into the engine. If that looks ok, it sounds like you have a large vacuum leak somewhere.