Trouble Getting My Newport Started

Rutty

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I'm hoping that the collective wisdom of the group can help me get my "new" '68 Newport started.
I just bought it a couple weeks ago and I believe it had been sitting for a few years. The owner told me that the last time he ran it was on the way home from a shop that rebuilt his carb. The carb started to overflow and he parked it and this is where my story with it starts.
It's getting cold here (highs in the 40's on a good day) so I'm not sure how much of my starting problems are temperature related.
I can get it to fire but it won't stay running. It will fire on gas or starting fluid. Neither one will do more than just cause it to fire a few times.
The cylinder compression ranges from 140psi to 165psi with most of them hovering around 150psi.
When I depress the accelerator I can see fuel squirting into the 2 barrels (2bbl carb).
I haven't checked the timing yet.
Could the idle passage in the carb be plugged up? Where should I go from here?

Thanks!
'68 Newport Custom
 
How long has it been parked is the million $$ Q here. You need to be more specific on what's the problem to get good quality answers. Replace all filters, pull the line at the pump and stuff it into a can of fresh gas and try it again. OH, and give it a couple more degrees of timing. Many bugs need to be worked out on a car that's sat for, How many years did you say??? Good Luck
 
How mechanically inclined are you? And do you have a service manual yet?

The fuel over flowing is usually the float not being set properly or something stuck in the float valve. There is a spec in the service manual for the float setting. Most service manuals available on myMopar.com. For free MyMopar - Mopar Forums & Information - Service Manuals
The ‘68 Chrysler is not there, but for engine and mechanical stuff the ‘68 Polara would work until you find the proper one.
First step, if you haven’t, since it has been sitting a few years, is get rid of all the old fuel and change the fuel filter.
Does it have points or electronic ignition?
If points, check your gap and make sure they are not corroded after a few years of sitting.
 
When you do get it running, run it for 30 minutes and drive it if possible, get some heat in it and get. The oil warm.

Is there any gas in the carb? Is the gas in the tank any good? Run it off a separate jug under hood, fill the float bowl on the carb first.

choke working? Choke pulling open slightly when it starts? Or is it opening too much? Fast idle working? Just turn up the idle screw.

If the carb was overflowing then it will most likely do it now. Need to remove needle and seat and get the foreign material out of it. If a 2bbl then if unscrews out the front, easy job.

Way to many details left out of your description.
 
I would baseline all the ignition first. New points, condenser, cap, rotor, coil, ballast resistor, spark plugs, and ignition wires. It has to be done anyway. Try to use good to best quality parts. Once you know that's all correct, you can go about blaming the carb, and tweaking that.

Mine was sitting 30 years. I just went down this road. Focused too much on the carb and not enough on the ignition. Once I replaced every last ignition part, the car came alive.
 
Thanks for all the quick replies and sorry for the lack of detail.
As for how long it's sat, I don't know. The previous owner said that he'd owned it 4 years and had only put 500 miles on it. The tires are dry rotted so I believe him. I wouldn't drive 5 miles on them. I'm guessing those 500 miles were driven in his first year of ownership.
I did replace the fuel filter and gas is getting to the carb.
I have been running the fuel from an external gas tank but the gas is from this summer so I'll get some fresh fuel and try that.
Checking the points is a good idea. I'll make sure the gap is correct and that they're not corroded.
As far as I can tell the choke is staying shut while I'm cranking it over.
I downloaded the '67 Dodge Polara, '68 Plymouth, and the '66 Chrysler manuals since there wasn't a '68 Chrysler manual. I'll look them over.
Thanks again everyone for the help!
 
If you can manually set the automatic choke on a high step on the fast idle cam, and it will start and run reliably that way until it warms up (in "Park"!), which should be somethung like 1500rpm range, BUT when it gets warmed up enough for the fast idle cam to kick off, letting the carb hot idle screw be operative, then it dies and adjusting the mixture screws (from a baseline of about 1.5 turns out from being lightly seated), that would mean the idle system is not flowing enough fuel. I went through that on my '80 Newport 360 2bbl a good while back. It would start and run fine as long as it was on fast idle, but would promptly die when it went to hot base idle, even running down the freeway.

In order to use an auxiliary fuel supply, go to one of the large sporting goods stores and get a portable fuel can for an outboard motor boat. Some come with a primer bulb, too. Use that for your fuel supply to the fuel pump until you can verify the age of the fuel in the fuel tank.

If it's been sitting a good while, plan on a new fuel pump, too.

In order to just get the car to run reliably, see what you can get done before starting to chunk new parts on it (other than the fuel pump and fuel filter). Once you can get it running, then see where the settings are at and go from there. DO plan on replacing all of the rubber fuel lines in the fuel system, front to back, to ensure they are compatible with our current Ethanol'd fuels! Cheap insurance against fuel-related fires/leaks.

IF you can't get the engine to idle, no matter what, but it will run fine on fast idle, PM me and I'll tell you what I did to get the carb on my '80 Chrysler to finally run well. Not very hard, but it took a good while to find where the fuel restriction was. It had a Carter BBD 2bbl, too.

Take care,
CBODY67
 
Follow up! Before you throw $$ on it, pull the plugs, check them. Do whatever basic tune up, compression check, etc. stuff that needs to be needed before you start throwing stupid $$ at it on other crap. KISS is the gig here, find what you're workin with, and what needs to be done!! Others will agree. Good Luck
 
I'm getting all new ignition parts tomorrow (coil, plugs, wires, ballast resistor, points, condenser, rotor, & cap). If it doesn't change anything I can rule out those items as the problem and keep them as spares.
When I took out the plugs to check the timing they were black. Not oily but a dry black carbon film was on them. Does that indicate it was running rich or possibly the timing isn't set correctly?
I'll have some time to work on it Saturday and will let you all know what happens. Oh, and I'll make sure I'm using fresh gas pulled from an external tank to be sure it's not a problem with old fuel.

Thanks!
 
Not oily but a dry black carbon film was on them
Google.
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This might be a stupid question but I'm not sure if I got the wrong set of points or if they're just a different style that I can't figure out how to make work. The set on the top is the new one. As you can see it's missing the insulated mounting bracket with nuts that the spring strips attach to along with the two wires. Is this the wrong part or is there a way it make it work? For the life of me I can't figure out how to make it work.

Thanks
 
View attachment 424264 This might be a stupid question but I'm not sure if I got the wrong set of points or if they're just a different style that I can't figure out how to make work. The set on the top is the new one. As you can see it's missing the insulated mounting bracket with nuts that the spring strips attach to along with the two wires. Is this the wrong part or is there a way it make it work? For the life of me I can't figure out how to make it work.

Thanks

Top set is for a dual point distributor or maybe an old IBT unit. The bottom set is what you want. Go shop for some CH15V points, and be SURE to get a good condenser with them. I strongly suspect the lack of these two crucial elements is what keeps your engine from reliably running. You probably should get a new coil also. Rock Auto is good for new coils. Get a Standard UC12 or UC12X. Black, dirty plugs are plugs not getting enough spark to burn what fuel is on them.

Your FSM should have enough detail on how to install the points properly. If you've no previous experience with this Art, find an elder who has. No need to be ashamed either. MOST Folk nowadaze have never touched ignition breaker points.
 
One neat thing about Chrysler B/RB engines is how easy it is to remove the distributor and put it back in. It is many times easier to pull the distributor so you can put it in a holding fixture (as in a vice attached to a sturdy work bench) so that you can make sure you get the TOP of a breaker point cam lobe so that you can get the points set correctly. As for the setting, not really different than gapping a spark plug, but with a flat feeler gauge rather than a round wire. In the case of the feeler gauge, making sure you get it aimed FLAT to the points' contact surfaces and not angled slightly (which can affect the gap setting). IF you want to be more accurate, then you might set up a dial indicator to do this.

Of course, make sure which way the distributor rotor is aimed when you take the distributor out, so you can put it back in in that same orientation.

It's not that hard once you have done it a time or two.

BE SURE to smear some distributor point grease on the breaker point cam lobes! Essential to getting 15K+ miles out of a pair of points, as we did back when points were all that was OEM production equipment. That felt on the one set of points can do the same thing, with a drop of oil to moisten it.

Happy Holidays!
CBODY67
 
Thanks for all the help guys!
I have a basic understanding of how points work and how to set them but have very limited experience actually doing it. It's good to know that the distributor can be pulled to set the points and reinstalled relatively easily (I'll take a picture of the rotor position before I remove it to make sure I don't put it back in 180 degrees off). I may go that route when I set them. I got the correct set of points last night and will get them installed today. Already have a new coil, ballast resistor, condenser, wires, plugs, cap, and rotor installed. The point set is the last piece of the ignition puzzle I've been waiting to get installed. I'm hoping that with the new ignition parts and fresh gas she'll start up.
I'll keep you all updated.

Thanks!
 
One neat thing about Chrysler B/RB engines is how easy it is to remove the distributor and put it back in. It is many times easier to pull the distributor so you can put it in a holding fixture (as in a vice attached to a sturdy work bench) so that you can make sure you get the TOP of a breaker point cam lobe so that you can get the points set correctly. As for the setting, not really different than gapping a spark plug, but with a flat feeler gauge rather than a round wire. In the case of the feeler gauge, making sure you get it aimed FLAT to the points' contact surfaces and not angled slightly (which can affect the gap setting). IF you want to be more accurate, then you might set up a dial indicator to do this.

Of course, make sure which way the distributor rotor is aimed when you take the distributor out, so you can put it back in in that same orientation.

It's not that hard once you have done it a time or two.

BE SURE to smear some distributor point grease on the breaker point cam lobes! Essential to getting 15K+ miles out of a pair of points, as we did back when points were all that was OEM production equipment. That felt on the one set of points can do the same thing, with a drop of oil to moisten it.

Happy Holidays!
CBODY67

I always just laid the feeler gauge in carefully and aligned the feeler flat with the points and used the engine to hold the cam exactly where it would open them at maximum. I admit that leaning over a engine to twiddle points can fatigue a back and neck if one botches something the first time, but with a dwell meter and a good 1.25" socket to fine tune the crank and distributor cam, one can tune those points very nicely indeed!
 
So, once I got the correct new points in and got new gas to it she fired right up! I adjusted the timing to 10 degrees BTDC at idle and it seems to be idling okay. I think this is as far as I'm going to get until spring. This was my main goal though, to get it started and make sure there wasn't any major engine problems that weren't disclosed when I bought it.
Thanks again everyone!
 
So, once I got the correct new points in and got new gas to it she fired right up! I adjusted the timing to 10 degrees BTDC at idle and it seems to be idling okay. I think this is as far as I'm going to get until spring. This was my main goal though, to get it started and make sure there wasn't any major engine problems that weren't disclosed when I bought it.
Thanks again everyone!

Very good! 10 degrees BTDC is a decent timing for a 383 running a Kettering (breaker points) ignition. I think the FSM for your exact model might specify 12.5 degrees, but with modern crapoline, -10 probably will do you better, as you will avoid pre-ignition pings. I just this week retarded my timing back from the stock setting to -8, as, sure enough, even with cooler weather, at 12.5 degrees BTDC, I started getting pre-ignition pings with the 91 octane moonshine they sell down here.

If you shop carefully on eBay, you can find GOOD NOS points made 40-60 yrs ago in the U.S.A. to run in your machine. Such are the only sort I use for Mathilda. Check your dwell and try to get it as close to 30 degrees as you can, by minuscule adjustment of the points. For example, the FSM specifies setting the points to .017 inches, but this engine ALWAYS has run truer around .016 inches gap. The wonderful, venerable Art of Ignition Tuning by Setting Breaker Points now awaits you.

Happy Moparing!
 
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