Truck's been acting up lately, not "performing" right with poor hot starts, & lack of power ........found the problem.
Crazy, hose ain't that old, maybe 5 years.

 

Glad you found it. Hoses don't seem to last like they used to.

 

So that doesn’t look like a load a matic connection. Is that a vacuum advance (as opposed to the Venturi advance of the load a matic)?

I had trouble getting rubber to seal properly, always seemed to leak just a little, and with load a matic that’s only maybe 3-4 Hg. I went with a hard line there.

 

Reminds me of a time in the 70s with my Buick. I took it to a local garage for an oil change, their price was about the same as buying oil so I figured why not let them do the work.

When I got it back it would barely run. I went back and the mechanic told me it needed a new carb, $300 (a lot of money back then). I knew it was running fine before I brought it in, so I took it home and searched for something changed. I saw a slit in a vacuum line, a fresh razor cut.

I replaced the line and of course it ran fine, so I went back for the new carb . I told them I didn’t think he was right about the carb, and ran it for him. He dug under the hood looking right where the cut vacuum line was. When he came out I was holding the cut hose up to his face, “is this what you’re looking for?”.

I asked for a refund on the oil change, and btw, the gas tank is empty, it would be great if you fixed that too.

 

Agree Bobby on the quality of replacement products these day's, never expected a 3/16" rubber vacuum hose to fail in such a short time. Will definitely check around for something more robust to replace it with.
Bob, the dizzy is from a 85 5.0 w/ standard vacuum to carb setup.... my 49 F1 has a sb 87 engine.
As far as that "slit" in your vacuum hose is concerned, the same happened to me............ I really don't trust anyone working on my truck, so like most of us Enthusiast's I rather do it myself.

 

Good on you, Bob! The fact that you showed it to him is my favorite part.

I've had decent luck with small silicon vacuum hoses left over from my turbo car modification days, but they are usually metric sized and may not fit perfectly on our trucks. I have used a "smaller" hose to fit over some of these nipples with decent results. But the new rubber stuff mostly sucks. I try to buy American made hose in bulk for fuel lines or heater hose when I can, but even that is suspect nowadays.

@moejr Glad you found it! Could it be the sudden bend right off of the metal nipple on the dizzy? Maybe run a slightly longer run of hose for a more leisurely turn at that point?

 

A while back I had a minor under hood catastrophe on my stock ‘49 and had to use my towing insurance. I called the insurance company’s help line and requested a tow to my house about 15 miles away. The phone rep informed me they had preferred shops closer and they would take the truck to one of their shops in their system. I reminded the rep that this was a stock 70 old truck and I doubted anyone in any of those shop would know what to do with it. It was towed to my house. BTW, the insurance company was very accommodating without a hassle.

 

Sometimes I forget folks swap engines in these trucks.

Yea, after that experience I did all the work on that car. Ran it to 285,000 miles when it burned a valve. After that I had a job where a company car was supplied, so for over 20 years I didn’t even own a car.

Other than friends helping out, I do everything myself on my truck. It’s not that I don’t trust folks, it’s that no one is left who knows these trucks.

 

Tony, where did you get the silicone vacuum hose, local auto supply? Internet? All the newer vehicles seem to have molded hard plastic tubbing of some sort.

 

I think the modern gas is as much responsible for vacuum and fuel hoses failing early. When the engines are "hot soaking", a lot of vapor seems to get into the vacuum hoses.

When I was 16 y.o. (in '68) my sisters and I visited my grandmother near Tampa, and we all drove to Cape Canaveral in grandma's '65 Mustang. We stopped for gas and I had the jockey check the oil. After we pulled back on the road, it was showing -0- oil pressure. I pulled over and "somehow" the wire had come off the sender... He probably took us for an easy mark.

 

I'd like to think these days are over, but they're not. Recently my oldest daughter took her car in for service and was told she needed brakes urgently, $1200 for pads and rotors. I checked them and she had over 4mm of pad left. I waited 3 months before doing the job, the brakes were still ok. Bottom line, I did the job for under $400 and it was not urgent at all.

 

They're not over. Recently, my Wife inherited her Mom's 2007 Toyota Tacoma pickup with 7000 miles on it. The 4wd would not engage so the Wife took it to the dealer to have it checked. We asked them to give it a good looking over since it was new to us and wanted to make sure everything else was sound. So in addition to the 4wd issue, which they said needed a new actuator for $1100, they also said it needed a new water pump (leaking badly), front cover seal (leaking really badly and could be dangerous to drive), and a timing belt while they were in there. That was going to be another $2200. They even texted the wife a picture of the underside with oil and anti freeze stains all under the truck. Funny thing, though, the picture they sent didn't look anything like the underside of our truck, and it has never left a drop of any kind of residue in the driveway, or anywhere else. They didn't get any of our money. Internet searching of the 4x4 issue says those are common to have a loose electrical connection on the solenoid. The way I see it, they could have fixed that for cheap and created no end of good will. As it is, I'll never trust them now, and countless people have heard this story.

 

Further taking this down a different trail but:

My son has a 2001 Honda Accord with 80k miles on it. A Texas car now in NJ. He doesn't know about cars at all, despite my lifelong effort to get him to learn the basics, and he was having a problem with it starting. He brought it to a Meineke type place to have the battery checked and they said he needed a new battery and starter for over $600. I told him to take it to the Honda dealer as my experience has been that dealers "tend" to be more concerned about their reputation these days and I have had good luck at Volvo and Subaru dealers.

The Honda dealer validated the starter was fine and he just needed a battery. But they did a "safety check" and came up with a list of $3k worth problems including, struts, brakes, control arms and other stuff. The Car isn't worth that much. He tried to smooth talk me and bro talk me like he was my buddy and doing me a big favor. I could feel the slime through the phone. I told him to replace the battery and that was it. Had my son drive it up here to have a guy I trust look at it. Nothing wrong with anything. Everything in perfect working order with no potential issues.

Total scum dealer in Jersey City and he learned a lesson about "stealerships".

My son now has Platinum AAA so he can get the car towed to my house here in MA for free if there is an issue since all the car repair options near where he lives are run by criminals...

 

My brother is probably one of the smartest people in the state but when it comes to practical or mechanical matters he could take his eye out unscrewing a soda bottle and that's after reading about how to do it for twenty minutes. Some time back he helped a friend move from Iowa City to St. Louis. While in St. Louis his car developed some kind of problem so he took it into what I will call a "MacRepair" place. His somewhat minor problem turned into new brakes, shocks and a few other things. At the time I had just watched a news show that detailed how these places get you in the door and if they smell blood they swarm and come up with all kind of problems, one being how they squirt oil up into the shocks to show they have a leak and need to be replaced, exactly what they did to my brother. Now to move onto new car dealers. When I met my wife she had a brand new '86 Pontiac Firebird she bought from the largest Pontiac dealers in the Milwaukee area. At our wedding my father-in-law and my wife's uncle corned me and told me to always take her car to that dealer, the best place to have service done. We were married a while and her Firebird developed an engine oil leak so I took it into the dealer I was told was the best place to take it. It was in their shop for two days when they called me and told me they can't find the leak. The told me they had it up on the lift and had it running for some time and they couldn't find a leak. We bring it home and there was a leak under the car. I take it back and talk the the service manager and he asks if I change my own oil. I tell him I do and he says, "Well, see there's your problem. When you fill the oil you pull the oil bottle out too soon and your dribble oil on the floor." I then remind him the fill opening is in the middle of the valve cover on the side of the engine and the puddle of oil is behind the engine and in order to "dribble" oil while taking the bottle out I'd have to carry it over the engine and pour it down the back of the engine. Turned out the intake manifold gasket had a leak, at least that is what they said they fixed and took care of the problem. Same dealer about two years later sent a recall notice that the seat belt latches have a problem. Wife goes to the dealer on her lunch hours sits there for over two hours and was told they fixed the problem. A week later the wife is taking a coworker home and her seat belt latch breaks. My wife takes the car to another Pontiac dealer closer to work, the service guy looks at the can and tells my wife he needs to order the parts and should be in in a day or two. She goes back, the car is in the service bay for half an hour and when she gets into the car she notices all of the plastic latch inserts are dark read, the original ones were faded quite a bit. The first dealer never did a thing to the car. The best one was I had a brand new '90 F-150 and the paint started peeling off almost from the day I got the truck new. First the roof had little pieces missing. Took it back to the dealer and had the roof repainted no problem. About five years later the hood started peeling. I took it to a dealer who was closer, also a pretty large dealer in the area. First the paint shop manager told me it was my fault the paint was coming off in small pieces. I had a bug shield in front of the hood and the manager said the problem was when I when down the freeway I would hit bugs and they would fly up with such force that when they came down they nick my hood. I ask him so if I hit a bug at 60+ miles an hours the force of hitting that bug was enough for it to come down and chip my paint. He said, "Yes". I told the idiot if I hit a bug going 60 miles an hour I'd be in the next county before the bug would have a chance to come back down near my truck. He took it in and Ford covered the repaint again. But...... about a week later I noticed a ring in the paint, about the size of a quart can of paint. Someone set a can of paint into the primer before painting the hood. Took it back to the dealer and the manager refused to fix it. I called Ford and the next day the dealership called and asked me to bring the truck back in. This time the paint shop manager wouldn't even talk to me. I walked up to him and started talking to him and he turned around and stomped away. I was a lot younger then and the people I dealt with were quite a bit older but if something like that happens today the people I deal with are not happy after I get through with them.

 

Oh Bobj49f2….paragraphs are your friend.

I like how this turned into a bash the mechanic thread, such fun.

How about car salesmen? In the 80s we were buying my wife a new Ford Taurus wagon, trading in the old. We had worked out a price, got a certified check, and we went to the dealer. The salesman and his manager tried to convince us leasing was a better option. We didn’t want to lease, we wanted to buy outright. He wouldn’t take the check from us. Over an hour trying to convince us, over an hour of saying no.

Finally I told him to bring the trade in back and refund the deposit. My wife got upset, she wanted the new car but I told her we were leaving. They refused to give us our old car back, so I threatened to call the police and went out into the parking lot.

finally they agreed to take our check. We never set foot in that dealer again, all service was done by a different dealer.