It idles great but at full throttle blows some black smoke.. this is in park pushing redline (4500RPMs at most)

Is that normal at all? I unplugged all my EGR stuff.

Float is OK, jets are fine.. I can think of a couple of possbilities.. the fuel inlet inside the carb didn't have a screen or gasket when I rebuilt it, I put a gasket underneath it (the new inlet that came with a rebuild kit) but there is no screen. The is brand new.

Problem No2.--------------------------

I also have some serious timing (I hope?) problems right now. The truck is running really rough.. my spark plug wires get really hot. Other than distributor cap, rotor, spark plugs, spark plugs and spark plug wires, what would cause this? I'm wondering if both of my problems are related..

Long story but why not? Plug 1 and 2 on my distributor were crossed, I fixed it and my truck ran beautifully.. so I flushed the coolant.

The truck started running hot with water boiling in the upper radiator hose, I assumed this meant my thermostat was no good. Removed the thermostat housing and broke a bolt off in my block. It took me a month to get the bolt out (inexperience, broke an easy-out off into the bolt, spent $10 on drill bits to drilll it out.. finally used a $45 stud remover and it came right out).

I would flush the radiator every week or so while the bolt was stuck, water would pool up underneath the distributor. There was no rust when I started, now there is. I sprayed lots of PB on the bolt (I covered the water inlet) and it started eating away at the sealer between the intake and the block (the front of the intake). If I'm not mistaken, this just keeps the elements from going underneath the intake and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it's possible some water got in there. I'm not entirely sure it ate the sealer all the way back, I think it was just one clump that was already slightly extended passed the front of the intake.

I drained my oil and it had a strong exhaust smell to it, though with my lack of experience I have no clue if anything was odd about it. It was black and this oil has maybe 10 miles on it (rotella), I've flushed it about 4 times within the equivilent of about 20miles over the course of all the changes. (lots of idling in the driveway trying to fix stuff). I was hoping I'd find water in the oil because that would explain a lot but I couldn't tell.

The truck DOES burn a slight amount of oil, nothing too serious.. I think it's just a valve stem seal on one cylinder. I was hoping I'd find water in the oil, the water being burned by that one plug would cause it to run rough and an oil change would fix it.

I'm going to go ahead and pull the distributor to see what it looks like. This is the first time I've done something like this, any hints for getting it unstuck?

edit: when I say running rough i mean the tach needle bounces all over the place in park or in drive, it hesitates, shakes, etc. I put a vacuum guage at the vacuum canister and it read, extremely steady, at 10 and gradually went up to 14-15. I though this was odd considering the way the truck was idling.

Oil pressure is right in the middle, which i guess is a good thing, right? Just using the stock guage to test this..

 

If you haven't done so, replace your pcv valve... You could have too much crankcase pressure.
Running rich is usually an indication of a problem with fuel metering, like your calibration is way off. Somehow you are getting too much fuel at throttle. What kind of carb are you using?
Also, is the smell of the oil exhaust, or raw fuel? Exhaust leads me to believe a pcv problem; Raw fuel smell could be ruptured fuel pump.
Try this first and report. If you can, try a spare carb. Your intake manifold gasket should probably be replaced. Many people don't use the front and rear seals in the kit, but instead use rtv to make the seal. Not a bad idea. You don't want any vacuum leaks either, so try to locate any of these. They can account for rough idle a lot of times.

 

I replaced most of my vacuum lines, I'm pretty sure there isn't a leak..

and while getting everything running right I've just been using a breather cap with no PCV.. Carb is a motorcraft 2100, engine is a 400.

Where is the fuel pump on this truck?

 

Fuel pump is mechanical, mounted on lower front driver side of engine, toward the timing chain area...
Also, vacuum leaks from hoses only account for a portion of total leaks; Leaks can also (and commonly do) pop up from leaking gaskets in intake manifolds, egr valves, carburetors, etc.

 

Wouldn't I show lower than a steady 15 with a vacuum leak?

The engine is running far too rough to tell anything with the WD40/starter fluid test.

Just to make sure (thinking about the running rich problem) the ball and weight in the carb, the ball goes down into the carb and the weight on top, right? Not vice versa?

Remember, pre-thermostat it was running good. Post thermostat, it runs worse than it ever has. PB at the intake seal (remember, not the gaskets but the front and rear seals), water below the distributor (which is stuck, I can't get it out).. or is it possible with the flushing of my coolant that I blocked some coolant passage in the engine? Would that make it run rough?

oh, are there any diagrams of the cooling system, including passages in the engine itself?

thanks

 

Now I have no idea what you are talking about with the 'ball and weight'...
You can still have a vac leak.
There is water below the dizzy, you mean a pool sitting in the depression it sits in?
This is even more confusing!
Have you done a compression test? That might tell a timing problem if valves are opening early or closing late...
Without being there, I am not of much help to see what is going on.

 

Just a wild guess but maybe this engine is so far out of time it won't burn the fuel properly.

Coolant around the base of the distributor usually mean a pin hole leak in the hose at the T-stat housing.

Carb info.

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us...rInfoPages.htm

 

Sorry for being confusion.. i mean water would pool under the distributor after I flushed the cooling system (from the water outlet where the thermostat is). It would pool and evaporate, or even leak into the area under the distributor down to where the gear is, I'm not sure.

This happened 3-4 times while the thermostat was out. In other words, I know why the coolant was there.
I'm just wondering if it's possible I broke anything causing it to just sit underneath the distrubitor without whiping it up.

I should ask about the carb stuff on the carb forum, a lot of those poeple do nothing but rebuild carbs it seems :P

and can someone please give me some tips on getting the distributor out? It's really, really stuck.

 

A pair of pry bars; Getting a chain wrench around it (remove vacuum diaphragm) and twisting it back and forth, after some liberal application of PB Blaster, Liquid Wrench, or other good penetrating oil. Worse case, air chisel it into chunks and remove piece by piece. (not for the faint of heart!) Will require, of course, a new distributor...

I follow you now on the water... Yeah, it is not too good to let it sit in that area, just for corrosion sake... Normally when you clean an engine, it is in running condition, and will evaporate off on its own... Soak it up with rags or paper towel next time, especially now since you have the stuck diz problem...

 

IMO don't mess around with all those generic penetrating fluid that are for multi uses.

get the proper stuff and never look back.

Go to a marine shop that sells boat supplies and pick some of this up .

http://www.corrosion-control.com/corrblock.html



It disintegrates corrosion like you have and then prevents it from happening again

 

My favorite is Tri-Flon. Used it years ago and it beats anything else I have tried since. Can't remember where I got it though...

 

I'll have to order Corrblock online, we have no marine shop in the area.. when I had a boat I had to drive 30miles out of town to get equipment for it, gander mountain has some stuff but I doubt they have that.

I have a Chilton manual but it doesn't tell me a whole lot about cooling, any of you have a diagram by any chance? I know there is the upper hose, lower hose, then two hoses that go into my AC. I wonder if my water pump is going out? Or maybe it seems hotter now because I have a proper, 192F thermostat in there?

 

Diagram of what ?

Please be more specific in requests

 

I dunno, seemed pretty specific to me...

 

You are correct the ball is on the bottom. It sounds like when you pulled the distributer you did not get it back in the same position, Timing Off. remember that you have to remove and plug the vac line to the advanced. I would also check you spark plug wires to distributer, I think you may have a couple crossed aor timing off. I would also look at the power valve in the carb. If it's blown it dumps fuel.