In all of my 35 years and over 300,000+ miles of driving Imperials, I have
NEVER had one quit because of vapor lock. I have had clogged fuel filters, bad
fuel pumps, and dirty gas tanks, among other things.
Some cars were prone to this in the 1950's and early 1960's (particularly Ford
products for some reason), but I never heard that Chrysler was one of them.
My father apparently thought that he had that problem on their '60 years ago.
When I got it from him in 1985 I found that he had wrapped the fuel line in
fiberglass insulation from where it exited the fuel pump, and right up to the
carburator. Since it looked nasty I removed it and never noticed a problem. I
did discover that the ignition wires were bad, though, and always thought that
maybe he had mis-diagnosed an ignition problem as a fuel problem. That is an
easy thing to do.
Paul
In a message dated 4/10/2004 9:11:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
cbody67tx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> We would suspect that the clear or opaque plastic fuel filters that Chrysler
>used in the '60s and such would always have some fuel in them for us to see.
>By observation, NOT always the case, even on a non-vapor lock prone vehicle.
>Never did figure that one out and the old-line Chrysler service manager at the
>local dealership really had no answer for what we saw sometimes either, other
>than we knew it happened sometimes, even in not really hot weather.
>
> I suspect that one orientation for having the "can" fuel filters is to also
>allow the extra space to serve as a pulse damper of sorts so that the needle
>and seat only see a smooth flow instead of one with pressure spikes/pulses
>from each stroke of the fuel pump.
>
> If you're worried about fuel flow, then use the accepted method of securely
>hooking a length of fuel hose onto the pump outlet pipe and stick the other
>end into a stable and clean container and see how much flow you have during
>cranking (with the coil wire disconnected) for about 10 seconds or so. Then
>reconnect the original fuel line and put a pressure gauge inline to see what
>the running fuel pressure (with the coil wire reconnected) might be at idle
>(usually somewhere about 5-6psi). If the container was clean enough, you can
>recycle the fuel from the flow test--otherwise it might make good lawn mower
>fuel. If the flow and pressure are in spec, no problems even if the fuel
>filter might not even be 1/4 "full" by observation.
>
> Typically, Chrysler products were not nearly as prone to vapor lock issues as
>were many GM and some Ford vehicles. Chrysler's fuel line routings, by
>observation, usually did not get that close to heat producing parts of the car
>before they
> got to the fuel pump.
>
> Enjoy!
> W Bell
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