Hello from Iowa - 1980 F150 5.0

Hello everyone. I'm Aaron and I recently got a good deal on a 1980 F-150 Ranger XLT 5.0/302. It barely has any rust for its age and this area, plus the interior is in excellent condition yet.

I found this forum site from Google searching for tips and other people's similar issues online. What a great resource and group of like-minded people! I'm looking forward to being involved in the conversations. My zip code is 51354 if Gary wished to add me to the Member's Map.

I will come clean and admit that I am pretty young and inexperienced with vehicles this old (i.e. carbureted). I bought the truck because 1. this is my favorite body style and it was a great deal, and 2. I want to learn and tinker.    At the moment I want to troubleshoot my stalling issue. It needs some carb work but I'm pretty sure there's vacuum leaks at play too.

Thanks,
Aaron in Iowa

Welcome Aaron.  
Glad you've joined!

You have plenty of time to get old.  

Vacuum leaks are common, and vacuum is used for 'logic' in these pre-computer vehicles.
The main (and absolutely necessary) ones are timing advance, power brakes (if you have them) and crankcase ventilation.
Beyond that, and if everything is stock, you'll find climate control on vehicles with air conditioning, EGR actuation, emissions control (vapor recovery) and intake air temperature modulation.

Do you have an emissions compliance sticker on the radiator support that shows the vacuum lines?
Your truck has a tachometer. This is handy for diagnostics because it will show if the ignition has cut out or you're simply not getting fuel.

At any rate you'll get plenty of tinkering and lessons working on your new truck.

Aaron - Welcome!  Glad you found us.  

You did some reading to find the info on the map.  Thanks for that, you are now on it.

As Jim said, there's plenty of time to get old - like me.  And these trucks are good to learn on as they are pretty simple.  So we will be happy to help you with your project.

Speaking of which, you'll want to start a thread in the main section regarding your truck, with pictures and all.  (Not that you can't post pics in here as well.)  But it sounds like you got a good one.  

On the stalling issue, your vacuum and fuel hoses are probably 40 years old.  The vacuum lines may well have cracked, and the fuel hoses have a tendency to turn into mush - especially if the truck has had ethanol in it as the hoses weren't designed for that.

The vacuum hoses can be replaced by buying bulk hose at the parts store.  Just do a hose at a time and you won't go wrong.  Ditto the fuel hose, and there's hose from the tank(s) to the hard line and from the hard line to the pump.  But if you have dual tanks there's hose from the hard line to the valve on the frame below the driver and then from the valve to the next hard line.

Welcome, Aaron!

Hey guys, thank you for the warm welcome earlier this month. I haven't had a ton of time to dig into all my issues yet, but accumulated some parts and got organized. I want to reply to a couple comments saying I'll probably need to replace the vacuum lines. So far, I don't think so! They might have been replaced at some point yrs ago though, as the rubber is in good condition yet. No cracks anywhere that I can see. Underneath along the frame, however, I know a couple spots where I'll be replacing where fuel lines transition to hose.

Anyway, today I had a little time this afternoon, so I got all my hoses labeled and removed, got the old carb off easy enough. I could've bought a kit but it's giving me enough troubles and I found a bad leak, so I figured I was ahead to just install a whole new carburetor, plus I 1. have limited time and 2. am quite inexperienced, so I of course want to learn as I go on a lot of this but thought doing a rebuild kit myself was going to be hard. Idk. We'll see if I made the right decision. I did get a good deal on the remanufactured carb I bought. Or... So I thought anyway.

When it came earlier, I inspected the Tomco TMC 2-644 that I bought. I know a lot of guys like going Holley etc but I want to stick as OEM/stock/original as possible, in multiple regards. Anyway, everything looked good, until today when I was counting and labeling hoses, pulling off the old carb.

This new carb has an extra hose line than the old one, which looks identical otherwise. The old carb has a notable molding "cap" in the cast, right where the nipple should be to match this new one. In the end, I want to ask for direction. Does anyone know specifically where this line should go, if I were to add a hose? Or do I need to return this carb for a proper match? Again, it looks identical otherwise. Thank you in advance. Photos:

Aaron - Glad you are making progress.  

As for the extra fitting, that isn't a problem.  Just put a cap, or a hose with a plug in it, on that port.  And put all the lines back on the ports from whence they came.  That port isn't needed in your implementation or the original carb would have had a port there.

Welcome!

Aaron, What can you tell us about when and how it stalls?

Does it only do it cold? Or hot?
Does it sputter to a stop, or does it just cut out like you shut it off?

Gary is right. Don't be concerned about an extra vacuum port.
Simply cap it off.

Thank you Gary, Jim, and everyone else! My gut was telling me I could just cap it, but I was afraid of it being important. Thanks.

As far as more stalling condition details...
          It wants to stall once warmed up, though it definitely gets worse or more noticeable after sitting parked idling for a little while before driving. I should note, that it sits and idles without stalling. It hasn't died while idling yet. However, it does high idle a little, not terrible, but a little high. I didn't make time to tweak any carb adjustments, as it was already leaking gas out the front (would this be float issue or simply [accelerator pump?] gasket in the front?). I knew that the high idle could be from a couple different things, plus I wanted to replace the whole carb itself anyway... Okay, so but after it's been sitting idling, all you have to do is hop in the cab, pull it from P into gear, and it wants to stall out immediately. I Then I'll turn it over and the pickup will start up pretty well again, but sometimes you'll have to give it a quick pedal pump that 2nd time. But as soon as I put it into gear it wants to die again. I found if rev it up then ease it in, holding both the brake and ready with the gas, I can give it some as soon as it wants to choke.   ...Now, again, if the truck has been parked in the garage for awhile and I cold start (it cold starts quite well), it runs pretty well and you can back it out of garage just fine at first without stall.

As for your next question, that's a good one. To clarify, the stalling is more of a sputter, like choking it out a bit. If you're giving it plenty of steady pedal, it's fine on the road, but as you slow down to an intersection, it's hit or miss on wanting to choke out a bit unless you're prepared with a little gas pumping going into your intersection turn.

Isn't it likely a vacuum issue of some sort? And then again right around the base of the carb was loose/worn (discovered that today when taking old carb off) and from the front where it was leaking gas a lot I discovered (strong gas smell after parked for hours)...

Earlier this month I searched around online and found this old forum post that went on for over a period of a year or better by this guy Chris. His truck is a '92 but his symptoms were very similar. He fixed a lot of stuff in the end and went down a rabbit hole of issue fixing, but it sounded like a broken EGR line ended up being the main fix.
https://www.fordf150.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=46767

While I had the carb off out of the way, I took off the EGR spacer plate and cleaned it up good. I replaced the EGR itself tonight (either way, good to do I figure, and wasn't too expensive), but first got all the built up carbon char chipped away and cleaned out of there where the valve mounts. The one chamber was about halfway closed up with char. That looks a lot better now, so my next plan is to really clean up the whole engine top (filthy) and perhaps change the valve cover gaskets (leaking oil) now while I have more room, all before I reinstall carb hardware.

That's the plan for now! Thank you guys for letting me update and bounce ideas off ya.

It sounds like the engine is lean and you are overcoming that with the accelerator pump.  (And, by the way, it does seem like you may have a blown accelerator pump with the gas leaking.)  And a lean condition could be a vacuum leak.  But, it could also be due to a stuck open EGR valve, which is supposed to be closed at idle.  So if it was stuck open it would allow some exhaust gas in all the time and that makes for poor running.

Having replaced the EGR valve you may see an immediate improvement, or at least change, in the way it runs.  Lets hope it fixes that problem.

Hello everyone again. Thank you for all the advice and answers thus far! This is such a great resource for anyone, especially someone like me, figuring everything out for the first time. Tearing this ol gal apart is pretty fun though, learning new on each issue.

I actually can't give an update on the carb and EGR and how she runs at all yet, because while I have everything off and exposed, I'm cleaning and replacing everything else as needed. The engine is pretty oily and first thing I noticed was that it needed valve cover gaskets. I had ordered those while asking you about the EGR earlier. But one of my biggest oil leaks is coming from the frontside. Again, being new to all of this, I did a bunch of searching on this forum and others, finding two probable causes. Either the distributor O ring leaking (oil is pooled underneath there), or it's leaking from the front center intake manifold gasket..... Or perhaps both!

An update on my wondering is today I pulled off all the necessary stuff in the way, got the hold down bolt out, labeled everything, and pulled out my very first distributor. The O ring is definitely worn and flattish on side so it's probably leaking there. But my question I'll throw your way is... Does this picture look like enough oil leaking (and where its visible/spattered) to where it's most likely (also) the manifold gasket? I'm a newbie at all this and know ripping that open next will be a more difficult task than just changing this O ring and cleaning everything up....

However, I'm learning with each issue and task and I'm up for it. I already bought the gasket kit in advance (can return) anyway. Just curious if you see anything obvious.. There is also some coolant pooled down there, but that's more to the passenger side a little ways, basically right under the thermostat housing. I tightened the hose coming off upper radiator to housing, but it's wet on bottomside of there, so I think I'll change that housing gasket while I'm at it too. It might just be leaking there and not the manifold?

Thoughts on that oil/etc guys? My plan is to replace all these gaskets, possibly including both manifold and valve cover ones,, fix leaks as visible, clean up engine block and area really good, then finally put new carb with gaskets and new EGR all on. Honestly, the vacuum lines themselves are the thing that looks like I won't have to replace at all. I had a leaky brake master cylinder too, so that got replaced as well already.

Thank you!

When I'm looking for an oil leak I usually clean everything up with brake or carb cleaner so it's dry, and then run the engine while looking for it weeping.

Manifold front and rear seals usually leak a lot when they go.
I never use the rubber S seals they give you and always apply a high bead of RTV. (The Right Stuff, is the right stuff)

Glad to hear you're enjoying learning on this truck, Aaron.

Aaron - Looking at the pic, I'm not sure it is the front "china wall" seal on the manifold.  As Jim said, they usually leak a lot.

In the pic it looks like the leak is from the driver's side near the sender I circled, which is probably the temp sender.  I'd do exactly as Jim said and clean that area thoroughly.  But I'd go one step farther and stick paper towels in there in a way that they'll stay and tell you where the oil is coming from.

As for the distributor's o-ring, it might be it so go ahead and replace it.  But I see a path of oil from above there, so doubt it is that o-ring.