so after 4 months the trans is back in, and i start my 91 302 up just fine. runs about half an hour, then stalls; no sputter or anything, just shuts off like someone turned the key off. so it starts back up, runs fine for about 10 minutes... then the same thing happens. this time it wont start back up; just cranks and cranks.

i replaced the coil, had the ICM tested 3 times, checked all connections, and it still won't start. i pull the distributer out and put it back in and it starts, but the timing is now off. so i move the distributer one spline and start it up fine again, but timing is still off. move it again, now it won't even start again.


what is going on????

 

no ideas??

 

Fuel filter comes to mind. But if your distributor has to be moved to start, sounds like your timing chain is shot and has already slipped. Put a socket on the big bolt on the harmonic balancer, use it to rock the crankshaft, and observe if there is slack between the crank's motion and the distributor rotor turning.

 

I had this same thing happen to me on a 78 Cadillac, it turned out to be the darndest thing! What it was , was the fuel tank cap. Your fuel tank cap should rattle when you shake it, if it doesn't, once vacuum builds up in your fuel tank, the fuel cannot get to the engine, hey, it's worth checking, right??

Janet

 

ya know, i might just hafta check that out, thanks.

 

Hey, Bbender, there's one other thing i thought of last night, and this happened to a old boy named Jim Wolfe that had a Dodge pickup with a 318, everytime that thing would run about 5 minutes, it would idle down and poof, die out, then start after 15 minutes, it turned out to be another simple little thing, Jim put his fuel filter between the fuel pump and carburetor, and what that thing was doing, was the fuel pump pressure force was squeezing the inner element in that see through plastic filter. By hunch i tried to blow through it, one time when it started that, and you couldn't blow through it, until it cooled off some, so i put a metal filter behind his mechanical fuel pump, oh wow, that problem plaqued Jim for 3 months, when that cured it, he bought me a big lunch ay Ninfas Restuarant. On that 78 DeVille Cadillac that time, i was going to my Mothers from Houston to Fort Worth, and every 40 miles or so the thing would stall out and die, oh i was getting mad!! I pulled into an old Ma and Pop gas station in College station, and an old man, i mean old man! Came over while i was looking at the engine and fiddling with testing my hot wires on distrubutor and checking for carb fuel, and i kept wondering, why is that old fart messing around and grinning with my gas cap back there, he walked over with a smile and said Missy! Don't you know this fuel cap has to rattle?? Your building up vacuum, he tapped it on the ground until it started to rattle when you shook it up and down, and that car was fixed. But i'm like one of the other users in here as well, i would consider fuel filter next. Here's another thing that happened to me, in my 89 town car 302, i would be driving, and it would cut out and jerk and die at red lights, i noticed a greenish white secondary ground on my battery grund, and decided to clean it up and temporarily just cut the good part of the wire and wrap it around the bolt nut on the battery ground, you know that car never had a problem after that? Looks like i found the problem.

Janet