hi guys well i bought another ford and i need some help with it. it has been sitting for 3 years in a field the guy said it just needed a carb hahaha yea right. its an 82 f150 4x4 351w and a c6 auto tranny. when i got it home i noticed the inline fuel filter was broken off in the stock 2 barrel carb. so the first think i did was pull off the carb all the smog stuff and the intake. i bought a 1405 edelbrock carb and an edelbrock performer intake. i plugged the holes in the back of the head. this is where im having problems the truck runs like crap i drained out all the old gas and put in half a tank of clean gas it would idle fine but as soon as you press down on the gas peddle it dies so i changed the jets in the carb and the metering rods for our elevation here almost 6000 feet now it idles great and revs up fine ok i thought problem fixed.

nope now when i put the truck in drive or reverse there is no power and it wants to die the rpm's drop to about 500. ive checked all the vacume lines and the are no leaks that i can tell due to all the exhaust leaks its hard to hear a vacume leak ive sprayed carb cleaner all over it and there is no change in idle. my question now is i think that the intake is leaking but how do i tell

ive checked the spark and its good
ive checked the plugs and gave them a good cleaning
ive checked the firing order and its corrrect

i dont know what else to check any help would be great thanks

bo

 

no idea's any one really????????

 

replace the fuel pump

 

humm ok its worth a shot i will do it tonight and let ya know if that fixes it
thanks

 

I hope you haven't changed the pump yet. It is always best to TEST parts before throwing down the money and time to replace them.

To test the pump, you should check pressure with a gauge and if the pressure is good do a volume test. If you don't have a gauge, you can at least do a volume test. Connect a hose to the outlet line at the pump and put the line down into a bottle. If the pump can't fill a regular size Coke bottle while cranking with the starter within a minute or so, then it is not flowing enough volume and THEN it would be worthwhile to replace.

If it does make enough volume then blow through your line from the pump to the carb inlet and make sure it is clear.

 

thanks doc thats what i was thinking also. i did do the coke can test and it filled it up pretty quick and the line is clear so i do think the pump it working correctly
any other idea's?????

 

Maybe dirt in the tank or line has gotten into the carburetor, or the carb was already dirty. Was this a new or used carburetor?

A problem such as this isn't going to be caused by the jets not being for high altitude. That might well cause a little less than perfect running, but it would still run all right, especially when cold.

Perhaps your accelerator pump is not working properly. Check for a good stream of fuel from it. Maybe your float level is wrong, or the carb is flooding.

I assume you never saw or heard this engine run before. If so, you really can't be certain that the poor running is fuel related. It could be ignition (including high tension wires in wrong order) or mechanical (bad valve(s) or bent pushrods), etc. etc.

You have to troubleshoot this starting at the beginning, I think.

 

The first thing you should have done was replace the broken fuel filter and see how it ran as original.
"All the smog stuff" consists of parts that regulate engine vacuum and provide provisions for intake heat during warm-up.
Edelbrock sells parts that are emissions compatible that would have worked with the system as was.

So you took off a bunch of parts so you can have a vehicle that spews out more emissions AND runs like crap? Congrats.

The Edelbrock Performer intake has no rear water crossover ports which provide heat for warm-up. IIRC, the 1405 is a manual choke carburetor which would mean you have no choke unless you ran a cable.

You may need to let it warm up for an hour before it will run since you made so many "improvements".

Sorry for the rant, but this happens more often than not; for some reason there is a misconception out there that if you rip out all the "smog stuff", you'll have a motor that will run like a screaming banshee, when it just causes more problems than it solves.

Perhaps you have a line that isn't plugged now causing a vaccum leak.

Good Luck and LUK how it works out.

Oh- one more thing, have you checked the timing?

 

For what it's worth. I have a 302 that did same thing. Idle great, rev fine, just would do the same when putting in gear. Disconnect vacuum advance and plugged port at carb. Run's and drives great. I still haven't figured out why, but it runs great just on the centrifical advance. Acts like soon as it gets a load on it, it throws in too much advance. I'll figure it out when it gets warmer.

 

hey bean scoot thanks it was a couple of bad valves and bent push rods it runs like a champ now it starts right up with the first bump of the key.and that 1405 makes it purr like a kitten. the best part is it warms right up in about 15 minutes at an idle at 900 rpm while im feeding the horses. so ya so much for all the leaky smog crap that ford put on these years of trucks.

 

All the leaky smog "crap" that Ford installed 27 years ago was in perfect working order. You cannot expect these parts to still be in pristine condition today.

It wasn't Ford's idea to install all the emissions equipment, it was, and still is, a federal law that it has to be on there.

In states like CA, it's a felony to remove emissions equipment from any vehicle made after 1975.

 

When I got my '80, all the smog equipment had been ripped out of it and HAD to be replaced to pass State Inspection. What a PITA!

It took weeks, trips to the Ford dealer, auto parts and junkyards to get a reasonable semblance of a working system. Some of the parts wound up being pretty expensive and took several tries to get the correct one, egr valve comes to mind as one.

Bottom line is this- this genius that owned the truck prior to me caused a real nightmare for me, and the more parts I installed, the better the truck ran and the better economy it got. When I first got it, this guy said it was "cold-natured, like all Fords."

It starts right up, is ready to go immediately, (in other words, performs as well in 30 seconds as it does in an hour), is legal and does it's small part to keep the air in my neighborhood a little cleaner.

Obviously, putting "off-road" parts on an emissions equipped vehicle is going to render at least part of the system ineffective or disabled, but ripping out everything instead of buying $5 worth of vacuum hose and researching and determining which parts are useful and which parts can actually help performance and drivability, (or to be so negligible in performance lost compared to grossly increasing emissions as to be totally irresponsible in their removal) doesn't impress me in the least.

Putting aftermarket intakes and carburetors on ought to increase performance, ya think?

So does ripping out the exhaust from the manifolds back. Just because you can get away with it, doesn't make it right, and you have no idea whether you could get a little better economy, driveability or cleaner air at little to no loss in performance, when you don't even try.

 

Hey Arbuckles, I'm glad you got the truck sorted out, and impressed you did it so quick.