Just barely staying alive at idle, full throttle (1 Viewer)

[JohnL]

Thanks to all who helped get my new Painless harness and DUI distributor dialed in. It started right up. Went for a long ride and after sufffering some occassional and intermittent backfiring, decided to take it home and maybe retard the timing just a degree. It was running strong.

I went to go start it up and found it wouldn't start , only a cylinder half firing and then dying. Found that my starter solnoid was bad (can you rebuild those?) and replaced it with a gear-reduction unit I had lying around. Now it starts fine, but it barely stumbles along its idle. It will half-heartedly rev up when it is floored (to a max of ~2000 rpm) but will stall or barely idle again when accelerater is let off. It cannot muster enough torque even to roll forward a few feet. It just stalls, even when revved.

The carb was rebuilt a few months ago, but I haven't looked inside yet. Possibly a bad fuel filter??? I'll go replace that in a few minutes, when the garage is slightly more aired out.

Any theories? I will, of course, check the static timing again...

Thanks all

 

[offcamber40]

Re:Just barely stumbling at idle

Maybe a vaccuum leak? I would check your vacuum ports and lines. If it is a vacuum leak, it would probably be a big one and noticeable they way you described your running problem.

Mike

 

[JohnL]

I don't have any carb cleaner here to check,

...but I highly doubt any problems with lines (I JUST replaced them all, none kinked or old) or ports (they all look good.) I would have suspected a vacuum leak to come on more slowly...running perfect one day, barely alive the next.

Changed the fuel filter, same results.. ??? ???

 

[JohnL]

Got it on my own damn self

Plugged fuel filter and too-rich idle mixture screw.