Re: Contaminated Fuel Issue?

["MO ( Steve Mick)" <micher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Butch, I had the same symptoms with my 354 Hemi and Holley carb.  No ryme or 
reason as to wjen it would act up. When throwing it's fit, at idle  there 
was a very acrid odor not like unburnt gas. I checked all the usual suspects 
, evenchanged plugs.  With Sea Foam and 30 miles, it would start to come out 
of it.  I did notice that it happened not long after I put ethanol in . . My 
carb base bolts were a little loose-tightened them, started her up, put my 
hand over the choke blade , revved it up pretty good , removed my hand when 
it about choked dead, repeated this several times. My purpose was to get 
sudden high vacume to try to suck out any debris in the passage ways. . I 
worked, but now  I use unleaded regular fuel and no longer use lead 
additive ,runs fine now    ( knock on wood)...........................NO


{Steve Mick}
http://stevemick1964dodge.shutterfly.com/pictures/5
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Butch Edison" <waedison@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <1962to1965mopars@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 10:48 AM
Subject: Contaminated Fuel Issue?






I did some adjustment on the throttle kickdown linkage on the torqueflite on 
my 64 Sport Fury 383, 4/bbl, thought I'd take it out for a test drive. Fuel 
gauge was on empty, not something I normally let happen, and had no sta-bil 
in it, again something I don't normally let happen. Put in 10 gallons of 
what passes for high-test and hit the road. As soon as I kicked it to test 
the passing gear, the car started popping, backfiring, trying to stall. I 
thought, well, if there is some water in the fuel, I'll "drive it out". That 
actually seemed to work. After a few minutes, the car ran smoothly through 
some foot brake burnouts, pedal to the metal to about 70 mph. Then it 
started having problems again and they did not go away. The backfiring and 
sluggish acceleration continue.



I thought about fuel and the distributor as possible causes, as I'd recently 
changed out my single point for a dual point distributor, provided by a good 
friend on the forum. I had not driven the car with the new distributor, but 
had hand-revved it extensively in the shop and it seemed to be fine....but 
it wasn't under load.



I decided to start with contaminated fuel. Although in a heated garage, 
maybe enough condensation developed in the tank to create a problem. Or 
maybe with there being so little fuel in the tank, when I hit it with the 
alcohol-enhanced gas we have to use here during the winter, the alcohol 
kicked some crud loose in the bottom of the tank. Or just maybe....I got a 
bad slug of gas from the station. Anyway, I got a new fuel filter and 
proceded to siphon the gas out. Hmmm, you know what? There is apparently a 
spring assisted swing gate at the bottom of the filler tube, probably to 
stop spash-back from the pump as you fill the tank. Well, try as I might, I 
could only get 1/2 the fuel out via the filler tube, so put the car on the 
lift, attached the siphon hose to the inlet nipple to the tank and sucked it 
dry. Next, I'm going to get 5 gallons of high-test from a different gas 
station, change the fuel filter, and see if that cures the problem.



Questions:



1. My parts store guy told me that if this doesn't cure the problem, I 
should take the carb apart, empty the floats ( float bowls maybe), clean the 
carb thoroughly, try it again. Does this mean just taking the top off the 
carb while it's still mounted to the manifold or should I take it completely 
off? Thoughts? Advice? The last time I did something like this was about 45 
years ago.



2. I noticed that the metal tube coming off the gas tank to the rubber fuel 
line is 5/16" OD while the metal fuel line OD is 3/8". I had some new 3/8" 
rubber fuel line to replace the old (probably original) rubber line that 
joins the gas tank to the solid fuel line, but didn't use it because it just 
felt too loose. The solid 5/16" line coming off the fuel tank does have a 
double flare on the end, so maybe I'm just being paranoid, that a 3/8" 
rubber hose rated for gas is just fine? Appreciate any comments.



So, my plan to so eliminate fuel as an issue, going the route I described. 
If that doesn't work, I'll reinstall the single point distributor and see if 
that fixes things. If that doesn't work, well I'm not going there just yet.



Thanks all. Appreciate the forum and the sound advice we can get here. 
/Butch/ Ferndale, WA
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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----
Please address private mail -- mail of interest to only one person -- directly to that person.  I.e., send parts/car transactions and negotiations as well as other personal messages only to the intended recipient, not to the Clubhouse public address. This practice will protect your privacy, reduce the total volume of mail and fine tune the content signal to Mopar topic.  Thanks!

1962 to 1965 Mopar Clubhouse Discussion Guidelines:
http://www.1962to1965mopar.ornocar.org/mletiq.html and http://www.1962to1965mopar.ornocar.com/general_disclaimer.html.