My '72 F100 seems to be cutting out lately. It started Monday on my way to work. While I was driving, it would seem like the truck was about to die, then right before it shuts off, it picks back up again. Off and on, off and on, off and on. I turned around and brought the truck home and drove the Saturn to work instead. I have driven the Saturn all week.

I first thought that it was just because Monday was the first "cold" morning that I started the truck since I've had it. However, I just went out and started the truck again (it's a warm 85 right now), and while I sat in the driveway, I held the gas down a little, and again it acted like it wanted to quit, then picked back up. Tried to quit again, picked back up, etc, and etc, and so on.

Anybody have any clue where to begin? I am practically illiterate when it comes to working on engines. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

Check your spark plug wires (Probably a good idea to replace them if they look original)

Check your distributer cap and remove it. Clean any carbon deposits etc with fine sand paper.

If all that seems fine i would guess you have a carburator problem. Might want to clean it or rebuild it. How does the air filter look?

 

if your truck is still cuttin out after cleanin out the spark plugs, u should rebulid the carb that should do the trick.

 

Yeah, my guess would be carb or possibly the fuel pump. It might also me the pickup tube? Have you ever cleaned your gastank? Or even looked inside to see rusted flakes clinging to the walls? If you ran your tank dry or very low it may have sucked up some junk and has clogged all the fuel passageways. This happened to me. The only other thing I can think of is I was doing some hard 4x4ing and the pin that holds the small gear on your distributer broke. Then it had just enough go to suck it back up the oil pickup(which for some reason had no screen!) lock up the oil pump and snap the oil pump driveshaft. So there I am on top of the mountain screaming obscenities. Weeks later I figured it out. It started to cut out, then it would go a little more, then a little less then it would sputter down like it ran out of fuel. Pull your distributer to be safe.

 

if it starts to fall on its face when you give it gas and when you let up it picks up again it would be the accelerator pump on the carb. its a diaphram on the front of the carb and is easy to replace. it will cause the engine to spit a sputter when you try to give it gas.

 

All the suggestions offered up to you are the basics. I have the same vehicle and had the same problems you're having. The first thing was to rebuild the carb. My neighbor had a rebuild kit w/o the acc pump because he needed it. I rebuilt the carb. This didn't help and then I noticed the distributor didn't have any spring in it. Got a new one at Pep-Boys for $22.50. That fixed it for me. Then my fuel pump went bad ($20 again). Now I'm back to normal. Good thing about these trucks is that they're cheap and easy to fix.

If you have a bad accelerator pump it will be leaking gas and you can smell it. You can also test it by getting under the hood and work the throttle back. If the pump is bad it has a hole in it and fuel will leak throught the weaphole in the coverplate. You can get one at Autozone for $3.99 in the HELP! parts section and not have to buy the entire rebuild kit. All you do is remove the cover, replace the diaphram (be sure to put the spring back in correctly - large end against carb) and replace the cover plate. It's that simple. You can rebuild the carb for less than $20 if you're capable. If you've ever built a model airplane as a kid then you can rebuild a carb. The hard part is setting the automatic choke and it isn't hard. You'll just need the procedure. Everything else is a cake walk.

 

OK. Changed spark plugs. Spark plug wires. Air filter & breather. Rebuilt carbeurator. Changed fuel filter. Nata, nata, nata, nata, nata. Changed fuel pump. TADA! did the trick.

Just got done with it today. It rode great for about 20 minutes. Then, on my way back home, going up a long hill, it started kinda sputtering like it was trying to backfire. After I topped the hill, everything went fine the rest of the way home. But the sputtering has me kinda anxious. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Could be that you set your float level a bit low.

 

When you rebuilt the carb did you set the float level exactly like the kit said to? Like WillyB says, could be that the float level is too low. That's all I've got. The only time I've ever had a problem with going up hill was when I was almost out of fuel. Did you have fuel? I can't think of anything else