Hey to everybody!

I'm pretty new to this forum, but I've visited a few times, and I like what I see...

But here's why I'm posting today. I have a 1981 F-100 2WD inline 6 cylinder pickup. I bought it from my pastor's wife. The truck belonged to her father, who had a heart attack a few years back and was put in the hospital, where he soon past away. The truck looks like crap, but the engine is fantastic (just 32,087.6 miles on her)!

But there's a few major problems:

1. When I crank it up, it makes horrible racket. A neighbor aout a mile down the road told me he thought the air mixture was too rich (I believe he said it was the air that was too much, not fuel. But if you have any suggestions about the fuel mixture, please reply!!!).

2. When I crank it up, IT WILL NOT IDLE. If I DO get it to idle, the idle is extremely low and it sounds as though I'm out of gas. I refered to my Haynes manual and it made reference to my vacuum leaks (did I forget to mention that?).

3. Vacuum leaks. They're everywhere on this thing. I have hoses that lead off to nowhere. There's about 20 or so hoses that aren't connected to anything, but I can hear things making high pitched sucking noises, which lead me to believe there are a few leaks (ain't I smart?). I've looked just about anywhere I can think of to try to find a "wiring" diagram for these hoses. I know most of them are supposed to go to the carboratuer, but I don't want to play the guessing game and just start plugging them where I please...and it never came with a complete breather system. The most it came with was an air filter. That's it!

4. I drove it around the other week (a very smooth ride, too...) to let the water in the radiator mix with my leak stopper solution and pump through the head. When I got home about 10 minutes later, I popped the hood and seen the whitest smoke I've ever seen in my entire life hovering out of my carboratuer. That freaked me out! Can someone explain that?!

5. I've had 2 buddies of mine help my clean my head and replace my pushrods and replace all my gaskets (WHAT A HASSALE!!!!!!!). The night we were taking everything off, the buddy who was taking off my carb accidently broke off a hose (it, too, lead to absolutely nothing). The hose was attached to the carb but lead off to nothing. We didn't think much about it, but I kept it. When I went to Autozone the next week, I asked them about it and the manager said it had something to do with keeping the gasoline a liquid so that it wouldn't evaporate before it got into the cylinder. Can someone verify that for me?

There's much more I could continue to complain about, but I'll stop at what I have here and see if anyone can help me with these. Any reply will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all!

In His Name,
Allen

 

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Once again...Welcome to the FTE Family

 

Allen,

I had similar issues when I purchased a 90 2 years ago with 65K on the odo. Look at all the rubber under the hood (vacuum lines, fuel hoses, etc). Check for cracks in the ignition wires.

Mine wouldn't idle when cold and it was due to a cracked vacuum line. Misfires were traced back to cracked spark plug wires.

Hope that gets you going in the right direction.

 

Make sure that your carb floats aren't sticking and dumping raw fuel into the oil. If it is dumping fuel into the oil, you could lose your bearings real quick.
I wouldn't use that stop leak crap in the radiator if I were you. Stop leak doesn't know the difference between a leak and a cooling tube. I lost a radiator one summer due to that stuff. I was too cheap to get it fixed right one week, and the next week in 110* weather, the radiator blew in the middle of the Nevada desert. When I took the radiator out, it was all plugged up with little pellets of death.

 

It could also be a bad intake manifold gasket.

Try using a spray bottle filled with water and spray around the intake manifold area while the engine is running.

If the rpm raises, then you may have a vacuum leak in that area.

Just a thought.

It's happened to me a few times.

 

Vacuum diag at: http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBr...3d800ce605.jsp Figure 76 is likely pretty close.

 

I have a smog diagram on top of my rad. supt.; the same year as allenthemusicman, but it's a F150 AND it's a Ca. truck.

Totally different vacuum hose routing cause of our smog regs.

 

Hey, thanks for the replies! I just got in from working on her and I found out a few other things...don't worry. I won't post them until I'm sure they're causing a definite problem. I took the vacuum diagram, Piffery, and printed it and posted it in my Haynes manual so I'd be able to see it while working. I saw only 1 hose that needed hooking up, but there are still about 3-6 ports still without hoses hooked up to them. About that diagram: what do the abbreviations mean? TVV, VRDV, TVS, VCV...what on earth are those things??? (Let me make mention that I live far out in the country and am just now graduating high school. Big words confuse me easily... :-) ) Thanks for your help Piffery!

Thanks for the welcome, fordborn! I'm happy to be here!

Briansrapier: Yeah, most of my hoses are old, but I've got some more hose to replace anything that I suspect to be faulty. Thanks for the info!

Hey, bighoss. Yeah, I agree with you on the stop-leak matter. It can't be used for some seasons. I think the hottest it will get here is 100 or 120 degrees. I'm probably gonna drain my motor and flush the mess out of it and replace the fluids. I used the stop-leak for a busted freeze plug that was letting out all my coolant. Thanks for the tip!

Sierraben: I haven't got around to checking the intake manifold gasket yet. I replaced it, the exhaust manifold, carboretuer, head, and valve cover gaskets all at the same time. I'm not saying I'm the best at replacing any of them, but they're fairly new and I guess I was thinking about priority over simplicity. Thanks!

Thanks everybody! All your tips and suggestions have helped me tremendously. If anyone has more suggestions, I'll ALWAYS be checking this thread for new replies, so please continue posting! Thank you all very much!

In His Name,
Allen