Virgil J.
New Member
Hello guys, I have a 66 with a 318 poly.
This is sort of a mess that could be hard to follow. I am a young guy who might be able to win some sort of "how low budget can you go" car contest.
I have been drving this car daily for a few years, have put many miles on it (and replaced the headgaskets 20,000 miles ago) first with the original carb - stromberg WW2 -, then with a rebuilt 2 bbl holley from an 86 dodge ram, with which the car was running really good, but eventually needed another rebuild, as I could turn in one of the mixture screws and the car wouldnt stall.
I had been driving it for a long time with from what Ive found a non-functioning vaccuum advance and no knowledge that there was an oiler on the distributor. So it was dry in there, and I wore out the shaft...eventually the distributor had a lot of play so it was a wonder how the rotor managed to stay in the middle and the motor got spark. They say theres a little more leeway with these old motors.
It seems that I kept getting crap quality distributor caps, as you get what you pay for... the metal part in the middle that touches the rotor kept gettign "chipped". Also had poor quality plug wires which I have gone through and tested and repaired.
In a cheap attemp to keep it somewhat original I replaced it with an NOS rebuilt 20 years ago Stromberg WW1 that was originally for a 61 GMC truck. The difference in these carbs is the linkage and the top half of the carb, and the fact that the ww1 is set up for a manual choke, which I hooked up. A common problem with the ww carbs is the throttle butterfly rod or whatcha callit wears out the hole its in, and the fuel leaks out, which was the case with this carb, even though it was factory reman/ rebuilt by holley co in 1989. This is usually fixed by drilling and inserting brass bushings.
I changed the points on the worn out distributor and messed up the process of doing so a few times.
Anyway I just slapped this carb on and drove it for a while, the float was sticking, and it would run until I tried driving uphill. So I adjusted this float and it helped. But the thing started running poorly. I flooded the carb a few times trying to get somewhere in a hurry an it made some loud noises when it ran, I blew up one of my mufflers. So I had friends try to help me out, some thought that it could have skipped a tooth on the timing chain.. they were saying it could have plastic teeth on it but I thought it was too old (66) for that. So I did turn the motor over by hand and tried to see if it was still at tdc on cyl 1. It seemed like the timing was ok. I could start it and it would run for about 8 seconds then stall.
Having a worn distributor shaft, I replaced the distributor with a cheap reman points one, that seemed to be of a later model origin that did not have the oiler, and had a white plastic bushing part on the middle of the shaft.
One friend said that it could have a leaky intake valve, or a blown head gasket or a leak between cylinders, so I pulled the spark plugs out, loosened up all the rocker arms and pulled the pushrods out and stuck a rubber tipped air hose in each spark plug hole, applied the air to each, and it seemed like there was no air coming out the carb or the exhaust.
The oil on the distick looked fine.
I pulled one of the head bolts on the drivers side and it looke like creamy oil like a blown head gasket but I was told this bolt goes through a water jacket where oil will get mixed up with coolant and thats ok.
I then tried my best to readjust all the intake and exhaut valves, going by the specs in the book with a feeler gauge. I did get the pushrods mixed up.
I tried running the motor again and it sounded not the best. It non-backfired (forefired?) through the carb and some flames arose that could've burnt / melted something in the carb.
I changed the carb out for a 4 barrel holley that another friend had, and did so with an upside down 4 to 2bbl adapter, with which I had to do some epoxying to fill what would be vacuum leaks. There could be a vacuum leak in the intake gasket area
Yes I know it is harder to diagnose one thing when you keep changing other variables, aka "try-thisitis".
I proved to many wiseguys that yes, the firing order and plug wires are correct.
I tried bypassing the ballast resistor. I cleaned all electrical connections and replaced the engine's ground cables with new ones. I replaced the ignition coil (any comments on using coils with built in resistors?)
I haven't replaced the condensor that is connected to the coil.
I even tried disconnecting the exhaust system incase squirrels had plugged it up with a nest or baby chipmunks and acorns .
At this point I feel like I should pull the heads off and look at the valves from the bottom, then if needed do a valve job. But my leakdown test should had told me that this is unnecessary. I am thinking of trying the valve leak test again, only this time with a screw-in tipped air gun in each spark plug hole.
I'd love to just put in another good running poly so I can go through this motor top to bottom.
????
Any ideas
This is sort of a mess that could be hard to follow. I am a young guy who might be able to win some sort of "how low budget can you go" car contest.
I have been drving this car daily for a few years, have put many miles on it (and replaced the headgaskets 20,000 miles ago) first with the original carb - stromberg WW2 -, then with a rebuilt 2 bbl holley from an 86 dodge ram, with which the car was running really good, but eventually needed another rebuild, as I could turn in one of the mixture screws and the car wouldnt stall.
I had been driving it for a long time with from what Ive found a non-functioning vaccuum advance and no knowledge that there was an oiler on the distributor. So it was dry in there, and I wore out the shaft...eventually the distributor had a lot of play so it was a wonder how the rotor managed to stay in the middle and the motor got spark. They say theres a little more leeway with these old motors.
It seems that I kept getting crap quality distributor caps, as you get what you pay for... the metal part in the middle that touches the rotor kept gettign "chipped". Also had poor quality plug wires which I have gone through and tested and repaired.
In a cheap attemp to keep it somewhat original I replaced it with an NOS rebuilt 20 years ago Stromberg WW1 that was originally for a 61 GMC truck. The difference in these carbs is the linkage and the top half of the carb, and the fact that the ww1 is set up for a manual choke, which I hooked up. A common problem with the ww carbs is the throttle butterfly rod or whatcha callit wears out the hole its in, and the fuel leaks out, which was the case with this carb, even though it was factory reman/ rebuilt by holley co in 1989. This is usually fixed by drilling and inserting brass bushings.
I changed the points on the worn out distributor and messed up the process of doing so a few times.
Anyway I just slapped this carb on and drove it for a while, the float was sticking, and it would run until I tried driving uphill. So I adjusted this float and it helped. But the thing started running poorly. I flooded the carb a few times trying to get somewhere in a hurry an it made some loud noises when it ran, I blew up one of my mufflers. So I had friends try to help me out, some thought that it could have skipped a tooth on the timing chain.. they were saying it could have plastic teeth on it but I thought it was too old (66) for that. So I did turn the motor over by hand and tried to see if it was still at tdc on cyl 1. It seemed like the timing was ok. I could start it and it would run for about 8 seconds then stall.
Having a worn distributor shaft, I replaced the distributor with a cheap reman points one, that seemed to be of a later model origin that did not have the oiler, and had a white plastic bushing part on the middle of the shaft.
One friend said that it could have a leaky intake valve, or a blown head gasket or a leak between cylinders, so I pulled the spark plugs out, loosened up all the rocker arms and pulled the pushrods out and stuck a rubber tipped air hose in each spark plug hole, applied the air to each, and it seemed like there was no air coming out the carb or the exhaust.
The oil on the distick looked fine.
I pulled one of the head bolts on the drivers side and it looke like creamy oil like a blown head gasket but I was told this bolt goes through a water jacket where oil will get mixed up with coolant and thats ok.
I then tried my best to readjust all the intake and exhaut valves, going by the specs in the book with a feeler gauge. I did get the pushrods mixed up.
I tried running the motor again and it sounded not the best. It non-backfired (forefired?) through the carb and some flames arose that could've burnt / melted something in the carb.
I changed the carb out for a 4 barrel holley that another friend had, and did so with an upside down 4 to 2bbl adapter, with which I had to do some epoxying to fill what would be vacuum leaks. There could be a vacuum leak in the intake gasket area
Yes I know it is harder to diagnose one thing when you keep changing other variables, aka "try-thisitis".
I proved to many wiseguys that yes, the firing order and plug wires are correct.
I tried bypassing the ballast resistor. I cleaned all electrical connections and replaced the engine's ground cables with new ones. I replaced the ignition coil (any comments on using coils with built in resistors?)
I haven't replaced the condensor that is connected to the coil.
I even tried disconnecting the exhaust system incase squirrels had plugged it up with a nest or baby chipmunks and acorns .
At this point I feel like I should pull the heads off and look at the valves from the bottom, then if needed do a valve job. But my leakdown test should had told me that this is unnecessary. I am thinking of trying the valve leak test again, only this time with a screw-in tipped air gun in each spark plug hole.
I'd love to just put in another good running poly so I can go through this motor top to bottom.
????
Any ideas
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