Help me figure out why this 302 wont go!

[67coupe351w]

Alright heres the deal. I appologize for the book.

The vehicle is a 1968 Ford pickup. It has a manual 4 speed transmission, first gear is a "granny gear". The truck origonaly had a straight 6 in it and this transmission is what was behind it. The engine is an early 70's 302 with points ignition, a holley carb, a "mild rv cam", stock heads, an aluminum intake of some sort, and long tube headers.

I was given the truck to get it put back together after a paint job as well as get it running. I attached a jumper wire from the battery to coil (bypassing the ballest resister) to start it long enough to drive it onto the trailer. When the owner pulled it into my garage he killed it with the clutch and accidently left the switch turned on. It was left that way for about 3 days which completely drained the battery.

I charged the battery and it would simply not fire at all, I was getting spark from the coil so I decided that the points and condenser were fried. I replaced the points and condenser, the points are adjusted correctly. and I got it to start up, but wow it ran horrible. I checked the firing order and cylinders 3 and 6 were backwards. After I switched them it idled real smooth.

Next I decided to take it for a test drive, I backed out of my driveway slowly...everything is fine. I started to drive forwards in 2nd gear (remember first is basicly unusable granny gear). I had to give a ton of gas or it acted like it wanted to die with the load of driving it up the slight hill i was on so I decided to use the granny gear. I still had to give it tons of gas and had to keep the clutch half slipping to keep it from dieing. Then it died.

I rolled it back to my driveway and fianlly got it to start again after quite a bit of cranking. I got it to start by pulling the choke almost all the way shut. It seemed to run much much better with the choke closed liek it was and I could actually accelerate normaly starting out in 2nd gear. All seemed well so I decided to go faster, I shifted into 3rd gear and all was still well. When it came time to down shift the engine about died durring the downshift, and stumbled like crazy once it was back in 2nd gear. Then it just up and died. The choke was still in the same position so I know it didnt suck shut and kill the engine.

I played with turning the distributer and various choke settings and was only able to get it to fire 1 more time, I had it runnign at 2000 RPMS for about 30 seconds and it stumbled and died and its still dead.

What is wrong???

 

[nds03]

rebuild the carb. check for vacume leaks

 

[FasterThenU72]

check for a banana in your tailpipe

 

[D.Hearne]

Did you change the coil too?

 

[HistoricMustang]

U72. Wrong Forum!

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com

 

[WORTH]

IF it runs better with the choke closed then it is LEAN, more than likely a vacuum leak.

Check the booster if it has Power brakes, taht can be a huge vacuum leak. and spray around the manifold and carb with carb cleaner if you can keep it running a set speed and see if engine speed changes. Could just be a DEAD gasket.

 

[67coupe351w]

D.Hearne:

No I didnt change the coil. Probably should?

nds03:

The carb does look like its pretty old. But I did put a new gasket under it. I also replaced the intake manifold gasket because there were no washers under the intake bolts and the heads of the bolts were galled into the aluminum...I figured that the torques were screwed up because of this. (The engine was built buy an extremely un-reputable shop which makes me want to tear the whole thing down and)

WORTH:

The power brakes on the truck is a brand new aftermarket unit. When the engine does run the brakes work really well. Could it be that the engine has enough vacumm that the brakes still work ok even with a leak?

One more general question:

The engine also vibrates a good amount. I dont know the compatibility between straight 6 and smallblocks so this might be a dumb question. BUt is it possible that the owner put the flywheel on the 302 from the straight 6? How do the balancings compare?

THanks guys and Ho Ho Ho

 

[nds03]

the un reputable shop may have put the cam on the wrong teeth on the cam sprocket. ive heard of that happening and the engine would barely run

 

[WORTH]

D.Hearne:

No I didnt change the coil. Probably should?

nds03:

The carb does look like its pretty old. But I did put a new gasket under it. I also replaced the intake manifold gasket because there were no washers under the intake bolts and the heads of the bolts were galled into the aluminum...I figured that the torques were screwed up because of this. (The engine was built buy an extremely un-reputable shop which makes me want to tear the whole thing down and)

WORTH:

The power brakes on the truck is a brand new aftermarket unit. When the engine does run the brakes work really well. Could it be that the engine has enough vacumm that the brakes still work ok even with a leak?

One more general question:

The engine also vibrates a good amount. I dont know the compatibility between straight 6 and smallblocks so this might be a dumb question. BUt is it possible that the owner put the flywheel on the 302 from the straight 6? How do the balancings compare?

THanks guys and Ho Ho Ho

Ya you can have good brakes and still have a vacuum leak.

on the Vibration, are you talking vibrate as in BUZZ , or vibrate as in shakes?
a good vacuum leak will make it shake from skipping, but not a vabration like it was out of balance.

did you try blocking the booster line, or spraying it down with carb cleaner yet?

 

[67coupe351w]

Ya you can have good brakes and still have a vacuum leak.

on the Vibration, are you talking vibrate as in BUZZ , or vibrate as in shakes?
a good vacuum leak will make it shake from skipping, but not a vabration like it was out of balance.

did you try blocking the booster line, or spraying it down with carb cleaner yet?

Yeah, the vibration is more of a shake than a buzz. I havent gotten a chance to do anything since yesterday do to the whole christmas thing. But I will try blocking off the brakes. I'm still waitin to hear back on if the coil should be switched out as well although there is no place to buy one of those today.

 

[D.Hearne]

As far as I remember, the six cylinder flywheels are nuetral balance, so, yes it's got the wrong flywheel for a 302. And yes you need to replace the coil, if it fried the points and condenser, then it likely damaged the coil too.

 

[67efivert]

i know for a fact the 6 cylnder flywheel will boly up but skake the motor pretty badly i bought a motor out of a guys truck real cheap because he thought it was junk then the new motor did the same he finally listened to me bout the flywheel then

 

[67coupe351w]

Alright so I replaced the coil today and blocked of the power brakes...No dice. I got it to fire up for about 20 seconds bhut that was its best effort. From there it coughed one other time as I played with the distributer position but otherwise its dead in the water.

Carb rebuild time?

 

[rbohm]

sounds like either carb or fuel pump to me. if you have one, try putting an electric fuel pump on so you get a constant flow of fuel to the carb. also check for vacuum leaks.

 

[67coupe351w]

sounds like either carb or fuel pump to me. if you have one, try putting an electric fuel pump on so you get a constant flow of fuel to the carb. also check for vacuum leaks.

I was able to talk to the owner tonite. The Holley carb was brand new when it was installed. It was installed probably 5-6 years ago but had been sitting the whole time.

Does anyone think that maybe the carb needs to be rebuilt just from sitting so long? Also could it be possible that the floats are not adjusted properly? How do I do that? It seem like there just isnt enough gas getting into the engine (needing the choke almost fully closed) I wish I had an electric fuel pump that I could stick on there to see how it performed but I dont.

 

[nds03]

i would rebuild it. actually its the first thing i told you to do

 

[my66coupe]

Well, if you want to see if your fuel pump is at fault, go buy a fram clear fuel filter, install it where you can see it under the hood and crank the car. if you dont see fuel gushing in then your pump is probably bad. To adjust the floats, it would be alot easier to have fuel in the carb. You need to remove the sight plug on the side of the carb, and then loosen the lock nut on top of the carb then adjust the needle with a flat head until fuel is just pouring out the bottom of the sight hole.

Mike