the situation is one I can only describe as weird.

truck started skipping a bit, so I pop the dist cap, and found the rotor button contact had gotten offset and milled the graphite ball out of the lid. no prob, new lid and button.


while doing this, I pulled the dist out, and found that my vaccum advance thingy was bad. I figured what the heck. so I went and bought a new one. i realize that after this is installed I need to re-time the truck. so I do just that only to find that it idles beautifully as long as it dont run down the road right....
when you get it running on the road, it wont idle.. there is no happy medium.

The truck runs nearly perfectly with the old vaccum leaking, non-funtioning advance and all. it runs like crap with the new one no mater what I do.

Does this make any sence to you?
I mean should my truck like a vac leak, and non funtioning advance?

On the way home today, I unplugged the vac line and it started running great again. and I didnt even plug the line.

1965 352 auto. i initially set it to 8 BTC. that was horrible. I think the timing indicator notches are off a lot...like 55 ATDC is when it begins to run.

 

I'm thinking the carb is out of adjustment. Probably to rich.

 

I would check your camshaft timing. The gears and the chain wear and stretch over use. The gears installed by the factory, if aluminum with plastic teeth, were soft, designed to eliminate noises. The teeth often fell off, and the aluminum wore down, retarding the camshaft timing.

The chain accumulates all this wear. The following is an easy check to determine the amount of slack, slop or wear, in your timing chain.

It is not necessary to remove any components as long as you can see the timing marks clearly. It can be done with one person, but a second person can be helpful if the distributor cannot be easily seen while turning the crankshaft from the front of the engine. This test cannot tell if a chain has jumped; it can, however, tell you if there is enough slop in the chain to have let it jumped.

Tools: Breaker Bar with socket to fit the front crankshaft bolt

1. Mark the TDC or 0 mark on the damper clearly. Ensure the rest of the timing marks can be clearly seen; clean them if necessary. You may find it useful to scrape a little chalk over them to highlight them.
2. Remove the distributor cap and place it out of the way. You must be able to see the rotor while turning the engine with the breaker bar. It usually is not necessary to remove the spark plugs, but some high compression engines may require it to get an accurate reading.
3. Turn the engine in its normal rotational direction until the TDC or 0 mark is lined up with the pointer.
4. IMPORTANT: Do NOT turn the crank backwards just to line it up. Doing so will give erroneous results. You MUST rotate the crank in ONE direction only. If you overshoot, just go around again. This is where it may be helpful to remove the plugs.
5. Once the TDC and 0 marks are lined up and while watching the rotor, rotate the crank in the opposite direction. When the rotor begins to turn, STOP. It may help to have a helper push against the rotor's direction of rotation. (Remember, it will be going backwards at this point.) They can feel it begin to move more accurately than you can see it begin to move.
6. Note the value of the timing mark the pointer is indicating. It will be BTC, because you went in reverse of normal rotation.
7. This value is the amount of slop your timing chain has in degrees of rotation. Anything less than 10 is safe, but performance begins to fall off after 5.
8. f you have anything over 25, STOP driving that motor and get the chain and gears replaced! I have seen a motor run with up to 45 degrees - but I wouldn't risk it myself. (Also, that motor jumped while or just after starting it, but it ran very badly. It couldn't be re-started. I only found out how much it had jumped afterwards. I think some of the valves got kissed, enough to bend them, but not enough to punch through the pistons. It never ran again, as my friend didn't want to fix the truck.)

 

I also tend to agree with sixtyfive, I think you may have had the carb tuned to run well and compensate for the vacuum leak that the advance diaphram had. Try re-tuning (mixture adjustment) with the vacuum advance hose disconnected and plugged(hook it all back up and adjust the idle speed when your done). I'll bet you'll have to raise the idle speed a bunch. The vacuum leak simulates the throttle plates opening more, to compensate you have to enrich the mixture and pratically close the throttle stop completely. Been there done that....

If that doesn't work, you'd be advised to follow banjo's suggestion.

 

this weekend (if possible) i will try both those suggestions. if anyone has tuned the carb, it was before I had the truck, so I have no real way of knowing other than doing it.
Im sure its probably a little of both things mentioned in this thread. shes a little tired, but I need her to stay awake for a bit. at least till winter when I will put her into hibernation and do some things i want to do.

Thanks fella's