This is depressing. Not entirely surprising, but still depressing

[salans7]

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.

[RenoHuskerDu]

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.

[ctubutis]

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.

~~

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:

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):

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).

~~

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....

 

[ctubutis]

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

~~

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:

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):

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).

~~

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:

[Gary Lewis]

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.

[ctubutis]

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....

[ctubutis]

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:

Video 2 contains a low-vacuum reading I noticed a bit later:

***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?

 

[ArdWrknTrk]

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:

Video 2 contains a low-vacuum reading I noticed a bit later:

***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.

[ArdWrknTrk]

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:

Video 2 contains a low-vacuum reading I noticed a bit later:

***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?

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.

[ctubutis]

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. :)