A bit long...
I am cruising on the interstate Thursday afternoon heading for a
meeting. Slow car on the left lane that refuses to move, low gear shift,
fast passing. Just after I passed the slow car and shifted back to 3rd,
engine dies. Oh, man! Doing about 85, had no problem moving 2 lanes over
to the grass between the shoulder and the feeder road. My first though was
ignition. I had old points fail on me before after a WOT acceleration, and
I did not know how old these were since I just got the car a few months
back. While trying to readjust the points, battery dies! OK, I am stuck!
Around 4PM I get back to the car with a new set of points. I had tried to
jump start the car earlier, so I was hoping there would be enough charge to
start it with new points in. Nope. Battery back to Walmart. Said it was
good and charged it. Nope. Back to Walmart. At least, I managed to get a
new battery for free using the receipt of the battery I got for my Sedan
last August (hope nobody in the list is a Walmart accountant). New battery
on the car, but could not get the car run right. Running so rough that's
undriveable, and could not run below 2000 rpm. The black smoke from the
back indicated rich mixture, but a bad ignition can create pressure waves
in the intake manifold which will fool the carburetor to pump more gas. I
did consider the possibility of carburetor problems, but different gaps in
the ignition did seem to change the intensity of the problem. So, I though
the distributor is badly worn, and that's why I can't get the points
adjusted right. It was almost 9PM at that time, running out of day
light. $80 got the car home on a flatbed. I asked the tow man to help me
push the car in its parking spot (involves a sharp backing in). He thought
he could push it... Yeah right! His comment was: "these car's weren't
made to be pushed around!". Well, I had to employ my other Imperial and
one of the toe man's chains, which was an adventure of its own...
So, next day, trying to troubleshoot. I was ready to buy a new
distributor. I also e-mailed a few people (including DB) to see if they
had any ideas. But before I got the new distributor, I pulled the old one
out. It felt reasonably tight. I adjusted the points right on the money
(its much easier with the distributor off the engine, because you can turn
the rotor to exactly the right spot). Tried to start it, same
problem. Car runs rough, black smoke, coughing. But I noticed one
thing. When I first started it, it ran much better, then it got
worse. After a few hours' though, I disconnect the fuel line from the carb
to a 1 gallon milk bottle, and start the car (up to that point, I had
failed to consider an important clue, while coasting to a stop, the tranny
was dragging the engine, and the tach was indicating the proper engine
speed. Dead points would normally kill the tachometer).. It started
running better and better, till it ran out of gas. Reconnect the gas line,
started right up, then got worse and worse. That damn Rochester
carb! Some Chevy guy was making fun of me at school about how "good"
Mopar's were while sitting dead on the side of the road. Well, now I knew
I get back at him. My problem seems to be contamination of my Mopar with
GM parts! Well, after the second time I reconnected the gas line, the
float valve got unstuck, and the car started running better and
better. Then, I read DB's suggestion of the possibility of a stuck carb
float. OK, DB, you got another lucky guess! ;)
There was a good side of the story other than learning something new and a
new set of points which was needed anyway. When I returned to the car
sitting on the side of the road, I got a note from a 74 Imperial owner
offering to help me fix the car. We got together and gave rides with each
other's car. I think I gave him a good scare when I was trying to clean up
the LeBaron's spark plugs the Greek way (WOT accelerations on the
interstate). He only admitted being just a little scared! Further, that's
the first time I got close to a 74. It looks a lot better in person than
from the photographs. He admitted that in spite his lower 3.23 gears,
there would be no contest in terms of low speed acceleration, and obviously
higher speed passing. In fact, he said he was amazed how it pushed him
back in his seat when I floored it. I also tried to give him a demo of the
green Sedan with its hotter cam, but neither of us were impressed. The car
ran a bit hot, and it was smoking badly! Back home, I figured out the
source of the smoke. I forgot to release the emergency brake! Well, at
least some of the differential fluid leaking on the right drum was burnt
off after 100 mph accels! It was smoking for over 30 minutes after parked!
D^2
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