I think I may have an issue with the float in my carb, but before pulling it apart I figured I would seek some advice. I have an 86 F250 with the 460 and an Edelbrock 1406 (marked 2122 next to that, no idea what it means). It has been running very well since I got it (aside for struggling to start on very cold mornings and always taking about 5 seconds of starting before the motor cranks). Just today it started no problem and I drove it to the store. It sat there for about 30 minutes and when leaving I noticed it took a bit longer to start than normal. On the way home I noticed a hesitation of about a second when stepping on the gas. I drove for about 10 minutes and stopped (turning off the motor for about 5). When going to start, the motor did not want to fire. It eventually cranked with me pressing on the gas. The rest of the way home it continued to hesitate when initially accelerating, but was fine after that. When I arrived at home I turned it off and immediately tried to start again - exact same situation.

After it started again I checked under the hood and didn't see anything out of place. The motor continued to hesitate when applying throttle. After I shut the motor off I noticed that fuel was dripping from the jets and into the body of the carb (can also see varnish in the carb here). My suspicion is that the float is stuck open and just allowing fuel to flow wherever it wants to. I've had this issue on small engines, but never on a big one before. Thoughts? Anything else jump out?

It has an aftermarket ignition coil on it, and I believe the cap, plugs, and wires are only about 2 years old. I always assumed the delay in starting was due to fuel boiling out of the bowl because it is always hot as hell under the hood, but maybe it was a precursor to this? Both fuel tanks and pumps are roughly 1 year old and I know for sure they are not clogged. Fuel relay is also relatively new.

 

I don’t know much about Eddie carbs but it does sound like the carb may be leaking down into the intake.. resulting in super rich hot restarts after sitting only a short while, and an empty fuel bowl when you go to restart it after it’s been sitting for a longer period of time. On a cold start, that’s why it takes 5 seconds of cranking, to refill the fuel bowl, so it will start. To test this theory you can try running a jumper wire from the + battery terminal to the small I terminal on your starter solenoid for 5 to 10 seconds. The I wire runs directly to the electric in tank fuel pump so priming it for 5 or 10 seconds should give you a full fuel bowl when you go to start it.

another issue that comes to mind… the factory fuel system with electric pumps had a fuel return line to allow the fuel to circulate. It’s not unusual to see the fuel return has been eliminated somewhere along the line and this is bad because you don’t want to “deadhead” the fuel pump directly to the carb… especially since the stock Ford fuel pump can put out 8 psi and an Eddie carb is only rated for about 6 psi.

So.. if you have no fuel return line and no fuel pressure regulator your carb may be getting more fuel pressure than it can handle… causing low speed flooding and maybe an internal leak.

 

Thanks for the info.

Just to add - After letting the engine cool down a bit the engine fired up and performed as it normally does. I didn't get it all the way up to temp again though, so unsure if it's an intermittent problem or related to the motor being warm.

 

You should have a external fuel filter on it up near where it goes into the carb. If you don't, that is a problem. If you do, take it off and dump the fuel filter inlet out on a clean paper towel. If a bunch of brown rusty stuff comes out, your fuel tank is rusty and needs to be replaced. A dirty fuel system will cause the carb to act up randomly and cause the float to stick open sometimes, just like your small engines.

 

I do not have a fuel filter at the carb, so I imagine install one would be a good idea. I replaced both fuel tanks and pumps around a year ago, so I can’t imagine any way that those are rusty.

I also no not have a fuel pressure gauge or regulator installed, so have no idea how much fuel pressure is going to the carb. Is it standard practice to have a regulator with and Edelbrock carb? I will say that the problem persisted even when switching between front and rear tanks, so it was happening when 2 separate pumps were in operation.

 

Okay, scratch that. I absolutely have a fuel filter at the carb. Not clear, will replace with one so I can monitor.

In regards to fuel pressure regulation - Before the fuel filter I have this little guy that looks to be a return for excess fuel.

Is that correct? Does it just return excess fuel to the tank? Does it regulate fuel pressure as well? Is the correct answer “who the hell knows?” I don’t see a part number on it, so basically wonder if it’s just standard Ford equipment that someone might recognize.

 

Good news! That is the factory fuel return (I think ford called it something like “fuel vapor separator value”) and was part of the hot fuel handling package. It doesn’t regulate fuel pressure but it does allow the fuel to circulate to prevent vapor lock and relieve the electric pumps from deadheading.

https://www.garysgaragemahal.com/fue...separator.html

 

True it doesn't "regulate" the fuel pressure, but it does have a orifice that let's a portion of the fuel back to the tank. I would think theoretically if you knew the gallons per minute of the pump, and the gpm that could flow through the orifice, then that would be a crude way of proportioning the flow and pressure to the carb. Can you dead head those factory in tank pumps and they will self regulate? I do not know the answer to that.

 

FWIW, if I recall correctly the vapor separator valve come in three different orafice sizes, big, medium, and small holes and they had different color bands on the body to tell them apart.

looks like there’s a rubber hose going to the carb inlet. To check your fuel pressure, Disconnect and attach a low pressure gauge to the fuel hose and run a hot wire to the small I terminal on the starter solenoid to run the pump and read the pressure at the carb inlet. I think you want no more than 4 to 5 psi for a happy Eddie. Flow should be about 1/2 gallon per minute.

 

For posterity's sake -

The problem continued intermittently, so I decided to install a fuel pressure regulator and pressure gauge. After installing this it turned out the carb had been getting 4psi all along, so that wasn't the problem. But at least I eliminated it and was able to change the fuel filter.

When poking around the carb I noticed a vacuum hose with a hole in it and some fuel leaking from the right side of the carb itself. I decided to just go ahead and rebuild the carburetor. The floats wound up being way too low (well low when upside down, so allowing too much fuel in the bowl), by over an eighth of an inch, and there was a crack in the bowl gasket. And of course it was filthy on the inside. After reinstalling and replacing the vacuum hose, all appears to be running well.

Now if I can just get the slow drip from the torque converter to stop. Just changed all of the fluid and the drain plug seems to be dripping very slowly. Have it up to 20ft/lbs and still a drip. Spec say 28 is max, so I guess I'll try that.

 

Thank you for the update letting us know what the problem was. Glad you got it sorted!