Morning,

Finally got my 226 fired up after the timing got 100* off. Not sure how that happened but it's running now.

1) One point I thought was odd is that I had it idling off of a 1.5 gallon gas tank. I filled it up fresh at 1.124 gallons 20 minutes before. 15 minutes of idling and I'm down to about half a gallon left. That means I'm burning 2 gallons of gas an hour just idling? Is that normal?

2) Looks like my rear main seal is still leaking. I'm getting ~1 drop of oil every 3 seconds off the back corner of the oil pan where it meets the bell housing. I'm guessing this is consistent with the rear main seal?

 

I'd suspect your fuel pump has a blown diaphragm, and is filling your crankcase. Which would also make leakage increase due to reduced viscosity. That's way too much fuel consumption.

 

I would agree that this is off. Idling is the least efficient use of fuel, but this is excessive. Good suggestion with the fuel pump diaphragm, and easy enough to check by smelling the oil. You'll know right away if you have fuel in there. If so, definitely drain that out and replace with fresh oil ASAP (provided you don't keep running a bad fuel pump to contaminate the new oil).

Good luck!

 

Brand new fuel pump from Egge, doubt that's the issue. Gas in oil would look like coffee with milk ya? Lighter brown? My oil is black with no obvious change in viscosity. Definitely looks to be running rich though. Exhaust is pretty black. Thoughts?

 

The oil would just seem thinner, have a slight sheen to it when you drained it. Have you smelled it yet? The odor is unmistakable.

The SU carbs on my old Volvo were running way too rich at one point and both carbs were dumping fuel into the intake manifold, leaking past the valve seats and into the crankcase. Same basic issue as a fuel pump with blown diaphragm.

Is the carb old? I gradually increasing severity, I would:

Check to make sure the choke isn't sticking
then adjust the fuel mixture
then maybe a consider a rebuild

 

You should be running on the idle circuit in the carb. What are your idle rpm's, and what is the vacuum gauge reading like at idle?

 

Carb is brand new, had it rebuilt about 6 months ago. Motor is freshly rebuilt.

 

I don't have a tach, where would I find RPM?

Don't have vacuum hooked up so I haven't bothered to check.

 

You can get inexpensive tach/dwell meters and vacuum test gauges at Harbor Freight or any auto parts store. These instruments don't have to be all that accurate for what you're doing here.

 

Thanks. I'll just rig up an Arduino sensor tomorrow on the crank and measure RPM that way. Will report back.

I'm thinking maybe fuel is leaking out between the carb and spacer? When my timing was off I noticed it pouring through the spacer but it disappeared when we got the timing dialed in. Could be that with the engine hot it's just vaporizing as it comes through the spacer? I believe I have a gasket on the top and bottom of that spacer but it's the original one. Are there aftermarket spacers? I was going to print one at work and see if that helps at all?

 

The only way fuel could leak out between the spacer and carb is if the float isn't set right, or is hanging up, and fuel is overflowing the fuel bowl. If you had a Holley 94 like the V8's I'd say it's a power valve failure, but the 6-banger carbs aren't afflicted the same way.

 

 

Here's the plug. So another bit of info, I pulled the motor last week and flipped it upside down to swap RMS. Drained the fluids first. Is this troubleshooting compounded by issues in flipping the motor?

 

Yeah, I'd say that's way too rich. As noted, incorrect fuel float function will cause raw fuel to dump into the intake manifold. There is no circumstance where that is normal if the carb is set properly. Raw fuel will always seep past the valve stems and into the oil, as it's obviously much less viscous than motor oil. I'm almost certain you will smell fuel in the oil, and as noted, this could have definitely thinned the oil out enough to get past the RMS.

Flipping the motor over (with all the fluids out) shouldn't cause an issue with the carb, unless you left it on there. If you left the carb on, perhaps the fuel float got hung up in the inverted position?