This is depressing. Not entirely surprising, but still depressing

So, I've been having some problems with the truck recently, it died on me on the highway on the way home from the dentist last Monday in addition to the blowenfusen & spitzensparken of the TS & brake light fuses (something else I need to fix sooner rather than later).

I pretty much coasted off the highway (I was VERY close to home) but it totally died in a left-turn lane at a stoplight. Some dude in a modern F250 pulled up behind me and, long story short, towed me home.

The problem seems to be a fuel delivery issue, it has problems at highway speeds (3K+ RPM).

After methodical diagnosis (changing one thing at a time) with the primary symptom being occasional spitting (backfiring) through the carburetor (an Edelbrock from a Corvette a friend is letting me borrow) which no carburetor adjustments were fixing or even changing, I decided to inspect the ignition.

Lo & behold, there is one cylinder that has been arcing for quite some time:




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So, the topic of this post... I walked to the local Ford dealer and went straight to their Parts department... told the guy I'm interested in a cap & rotor for a 1981 6.6L/400cid/whatever you want to call it. He checked his computer and, depressingly, they have no such parts in stock, not even one. The guy said he's been working there for 2 years, and the oldest car he's ever sold a part for was a 1990 sumthin-or-other.

THAT is depressing to me. Not surprising, just depressing.

Oreilly's seems to have one item in stock (or can get by 4PM) of virtually anything I want for these old things, but I hafta wonder what they would say if I walked in asking for points, plugs & condenser for a 1970 Mustang 351W, my first high school car. :)

Rant over, just wanted to spew...  I think I'll also post this on FTE, just to see what guys over there have to say... forums like this are great for problems like this....

P.S. blowenfusen spitzensparken....

Found in almost every computer room in the 80s & 90s:

Not surprising at all that the Ford dealer had nothing. The M-block engines are forgotten. However, the cap for a 460 would work, although they wouldn’t know that.

Points and a condenser, the kid won’t know what they are!

So, you have both fuel and ignition problems?

It is aggravating. I recently had to give the young lady at the parts counter at our local Ford dealership the part number for the ignition pickup on my truck.

She kept muttering I should go get the guy who knows old stuff. I knew who she meant, and almost said, yeah, why don’t ya?

Dealer parts counters are there pretty much to supply the service bays and take orders for brand specific parts.

I'm not surprised the counter guy had never sold a rotor or distributor cap, ignition coil or whatever.
Maybe you should have asked him if they had a carb for your truck???    

If that terminal is arced out that bad I'd be looking to change plugs and wires as well.
Something is causing a lot of resistance in that cylinder.

Meanwhile.... do you really think it's fuel starvation?
Will it just start to bog if you try to keep the revs up, or does it actually want to die?

Great thread topic, even if it is a rant!

These days, the only thing I go to the Ford dealer for are the FL1A oil filters...lol. I have purchased some Bullnose parts from one of the two local Ford dealers, and there ARE some old guys in there...but they are not much help. They tell me that they very rarely ever deal with anything older than 10 years old. The other Ford dealer...the one I rarely ever go to is zero help. Last time I went in there and said "1984", the parts guy let a big sigh out, like I was just about to waste 20 minutes of his precious time. Anyway, it is what it is.

But there's more...

I buy a lot of my Bullnose parts from a CarQuest that is close to my work...I believe they are owned by Advance Auto?...I'm not 100% sure. In the past year or so, they seemed to have dropped a lot of inventory. I used to be able to walk in and get just about anything I needed, but these days much of it is order-in only, or not available at all.

Pretty soon, I'll have only two parts sources...Rock Auto, and LMC, and I'll be at the mercy of the shipping gods.

Another issue, somewhat related...and probably only an issue up here in Canada, is the availability of single stage paints. Due to new national VOC rules in recent years, single stage paints have been outlawed, and most medium to large body shops won't (can't) even spray the stuff, even if the wanted to. It's base clear or nothing at all. Smaller shops and back yarders are still able to buy it, but those guys are also getting fewer and farther between. I've bought a lot of single stage paint lately to touch up my old 1980 F150, and the guy at the paint shop I use told me a few weeks ago that next year they are getting a new paint mixing system, and all of these old paint codes from the 80's and older will no longer be available. The only option will be to scan the old single stage, and try to find a close enough match in Base/Clear.

Sign of the times...

I wish there was a Like button out here sometimes.

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Concerning the dealer parts availability, I totally forgot about this yesterday while there, so I looked online today... turn signal switch, NLA. *sigh*
The "old guy" I used to go to for SHO parts who knew his chit and performed his magic (forget his name) retired a few years ago, I'm not sure how many people of such vintage exist over there anymore, it's not like I go there on a daily basis or anything. He had a cohort, but his name escapes me waaaaay more than the first guy's does.

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The fuel supply and what I think about it... this involves the tank switching valve, but the output pressure & volume are within spec, so my feelings are to leave it alone for the time being, one thing at a time.

Clean & re-assemble that stuff, begin with the obvious problem of that #5 cylinder, something is going on there (thank you, Jim!) it's right next to the power steering pump that had been leaking & making a mess for ~1 year, so there's that....

The SHO engines have similar problems in that the spark plugs are recessed in little tubes waaaaaay down there. The more I look at this engine, the more I realize (remember?) this is a Yamaha-built design, i.e. a large motorcycle engine...





I used to go to CarQuest, they had USA-made parts! Front hub bearing for a 1984 Tempo transaxle, that I was eventually T-boned by a pickup truck in.
But that was a long time ago and, yeah, they're now owned by Advance, who built a brand-new store half a mile up the street. I've got a negative opinion of them recently mostly, because their website is slow/inoperative and won't show me what kind of fuel filters I can get there, so.... Besides, Checker Auto/OReilly's has been good to me over the years. So has NAPA, but they're too far away for this stuff IMO.

I've been using Rock Auto for a LONG time and don't think I've ever had a single problem, so I try and stay with them for planned projects, e.g. control arms & tie rod ends & that kind of stuff.

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I know nothing about paint other than what I've already heard about the VOC stuff. All the parts for a new body on my truck are in my & my brother's garage + his back yard, but that's a project for later, I guess. I'll just have to use whatever I can get when that time comes.


So, anyway, today's efforts will be with that #5 cylinder, what's going on there...




As an aside, my mom's Altima that was stolen last December isn't going to be finished at the body shop until Monday, they tied to order Drip Rail clips independently (computer showed they're available) but the manufacturer is saying they now come only with the drip rail assembly, IOW they're being aged out. This is a MY2006 which is 15 years old now, so, I guess it's not unexpected....

It's only supposed to heat up to the mid-70s with clouds & rain every afternoon through the weekend and it's 72°F & sunny right now, so I guess I can begin my day.

“ The fuel supply and what I think about it... this involves the tank switching valve, but the output pressure & volume are within spec, so my feelings are to leave it alone for the time being, one thing at a time.”

I think that’s a good idea!

I have a really strong desire to change only one thing at a time and see what the results are and doing that is taking a lot of time, but I'm treating it as a relaxing, stress-free project as well as I can.

Fuel delivery is back to how it was EXCEPT FOR the inline filter being removed, I go back & forth on that one. Cap & rotor have been cleaned up as much as I'm willing to clean them, *all* this stuff was installed in 2005 or 06 but the truck has <5K miles on it since then, so...

Numbers 5 & 6 plugs look identical and were both exactly at 0.44 gap, so those went back unchanged:




It starts & runs & is BETTER, but there's still something wrong someplace, it kinda sounds like either 1) an exhaust leak, or 2) spitting up through the carb, it's hard to tell for sure. I *have* been wrapping the thing out on the highway a fair amount the past 6 or so months, I wonder if a valve is sticking or bent or sumthin'. I'm hopefully gonna get a good friend to come take a look at it with me this weekend, it's his carburetor after all.

Anyhow, the before pictures of the cap:






After cleaning:






I still want a turn signal switch, too, and all this stuff added up is getting kind of costly, so I'm really hoping to identify & correct this chit without spending $100+ but I guess it's lots cheaper than taking it in for professional service someplace.

It's only 55°F and raining buckets so I'm done in the garage for the day, maybe I'll work on the Taurus tomorrow for a break from this thing...

It's hard to imagine the terminal in your cap built up that much in 5,000 miles.
I would probably at least swap wires around, to see if the fouling went to another terminal.

Sadly, new doesn't always mean good.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

It's hard to imagine the terminal in your cap built up that much in 5,000 miles.
I would probably at least swap wires around, to see if the fouling went to another terminal.

Sadly, new doesn't always mean good.

Yeah, the reason why I don'tknow the true mileage is because I changed out the speedometer sometime after the engine build when I did the paint-your-gauges stuff, and the odometer got messed up when my father performed whatever magic he did to try and roll the thing back... it's kinda messed up (numbers misaligned) at this point and I don't pay attention  to it anymore.

So, I'm thinking I'll work on the Taurus tomorrow, weather permitting.        

My local dealer has a bunch of 50-60 year olds working there, and they have some idea of older stuff. The problem is, they know they don't have it. Ten years ago I would head to the dealer to buy parts for my 2003 Ranger, because at the time it was less than ten years old and they had them. Now, with my 2003 Ranger nearing 20 years old, most of the online part lookup sites (rearcounter and fordpartsgiant) are giving me plenty of DISCONTINUED results for most of what I look up for the Rangers.

I made the mistake of looking inside a new Explodition on the Furd lot, then looking at the sticker.

$80k for a vehicle that doesn't even have a shift lever.
Barely any parts anymore for our durable old Ford trucks.
An electric (coal-powered) "Mustang" and pickup.

Furd has left its base behind. No wonder they lose money.

I've sat in a new Mustang and oooh'd & ahhh'd, but I'll do that ANY var dealer.

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Here is today's update, I began on FTE today and am basically just copying & pasting, it's in response to a post from Matthewq4b telling me to pay attention to the distributor cap & rotor:

[QUOTE=ctubutis;19944819]OK, that sounds good, I can do that pretty easily, too. I have never gone through this amount of effort with caps before, I've always just replaced them at tune-up time. I have WD40 around here someplace...

The reason this carb is on there is the secondaries quit operating on my Bush-era carburetor, a Holley Truck Avenger 670cfm, a customer-returned refurb'd unit I got on their eBay store. There's a tiny, little, rubber O-ring-type gasket ($20!!!) between 2 cast pieces through which vacuum is supposed to flow to a diaphragm and open things up, but it looks like today's fuel doesn't play well with those rubber parts.

The real symptom starts at ~1 minute into it, but here's what happened: (you guys on this site have seen this already, I never posted it to FTE):

https://youtu.be/JVcWS9ZEfn8

The carb itself, I just pulled it out of storage:




Me & the Corvette/Camaro friend replaced it with an O-ring from the local hardware store, but it lasted only about a year.

My mind had me thinking I wouldn't hardly ever need the secondaries, but boy, was I wrong on that! It's more or less fine on flat ground, but any sort of incline gives it problems.

I can conceivably swap out the carburetors, but this one isn't in any better condition TBH though I can understand my brother's diagnosis of the current installation... it seems like you have to push down the gas pedal A LOT to get any sort of decent RPM and pseudo-power out of the thing, with the occasional backfire on deceleration (which was a lot worse prior to cap clean-up).

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This is my first-ever experience with an Edelbrock carburetor, and I guess my opinion of them is pretty good at this point, despite the current issues. My brother says I'll want a new power valve & top gasket for it, but I need my friend's permission before I do that (think I said that already).




So, we'll see what happens today....

Talking to myself, but here  I go.

That Holley vacuum secondary gasket, that was a problem almost 2 years ago, me & my friend phuqued with it but the fix lasted only ~1 year, and I think I see why... the old gasket, notice in the lower-right corner the piece of plastic from, um, something else:




I bought the proper replacement gaskets after the fact, which I just put with all the other carburetor stuff... until today, I guess.




Given that the weather is still decent (no rain yet), this is my project for the time being, work on swapping out the carb until my friend Tom appears and/or it's time for Yoga with my brother/sister/aunt:

I think you are peeling several layers of an onion, but that piece of plastic looks like a problem.  

So, my sister took me to O'Reilly's after Yoga, I walked out with a new rotor, cap, and inline fuel filter.

Earlier in the day, I replaced that Holley gasket and have almost finished installing that carb on the truck (Yoga time came).

But it's now kinda cold & raining pretty steadily, and I fear my time working on cars is over for the day, but we'll see. There's always the A/C compressor & battery cables for the Taurus, but the setup for working on that car kinda sucks.

I want to begin/resume the truck stuff with just the carb + fuel filter replacement, start it up, and see how it behaves. After that, replace the ignition components. One thing at a time, I don't like the shotgun approach at all....

I think I've said this before, you have to push the gas pedal A LOT to get any real response out of it.
Come to think of it, I've had questions about the "power" functionality of the power brakes in the recent past, but I thought I had "fixed" that problem by re-routing (and thereby removing a sort-of kink in) the vacuum hose to the booster... but maybe that was just a symptom of low vacuum, needing to push the brake pedal harder. This is a one-ton truck, not a cushy Altima (which I'm hopefully getting back on Monday).


After Yoga, I started it up with the Holley carb... that changed nothing, so I put the original Edelbrock back on.


Installed brand-new cap, rotor & fuel filter from O'Reilly's.


Video 1: https://youtu.be/RA5Nr7dVRSs



Video 2 contains a low-vacuum reading I noticed a bit later: https://youtu.be/JV3OPYwFVv4



***Gary, I don't think nabble_embed works***


It stopped raining, but it's only 57°F and almost 7:45 PM and too late to begin working on the Taurus, so my thoughts are leaning towards a compression test for the truck tomorrow morning....

Thoughts?

Chris, you need to check the box "Message is in HTML Format"
And then you need a line break for any text in your post, for it not to come out as a wall of text.

Have you checked for vacuum?
Perhaps the timing chain has worn or slipped?
That would seriously effect vacuum, and cause the carb to spit under wide throttle openings.

Maybe try putting a breaker bar on the crank pulley (15/16 deep socket) and remove the distributor cap.
Rock the crank back and forth while looking at the distributor rotor.
It will be pretty apparent if the rotor does not reverse direction immediately.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Have you checked for vacuum?
Perhaps the timing chain has worn or slipped?
That would seriously effect vacuum, and cause the carb to spit under wide throttle openings.

Maybe try putting a breaker bar on the crank pulley (15/16 deep socket) and remove the distributor cap.
Rock the crank back and forth while looking at the distributor rotor.
It will be pretty apparent if the rotor does not reverse direction immediately.

The only thing I've done is watched the rotor spin while I jumper the starter relay (and pump fuel to whatever carb is there).

OK, it's pretty easy to turn it over with a breaker bar, I can do that tomorrow morning, too. :)