Loss of power/ backfiring help

[FJmaine]

My '76 with a stock 2F just started acting up today. It's been running great, but today I put a little gas in it and put it to work. I was trying to pull a stump in 4Low when it started idling rough. It stalled and took longer than it should to get it started again. I limped home in it, but every time I pushed the accelerator, IO lost power and it would backfire. When I got home, I pulled all the plugs, cleaned them and checked the gaps. Everything looked good. I checked and changed the fuel filter and tried going for a test drive. I couldn't accelerate out of my driveway without bogging down. I have a known leak in my exhaust. Would this issue be related to a leak in the intake manifold gasket?

Any thoughts or direction on this would be appreciated1

 

[charliemeyer007]

Warm days and cold night will condense water into the tank. The paper element in the fuel filter will plug with water. Leave it out in the sun for a few days it will dry out and be good as new. Put some gas dryer in the tank to help absorb the water.

Exhaust leak could fry the intake part of the gasket causing a leak, plus it can burn valves due to little to no back pressure. Bad brake booster can be a source of a vacuum leak.

 

[shawnfj40]

My first thought is points cap rotor/coil

 

[FJmaine]

My first thought is points cap rotor/coil

I switched to Pertronix a long time ago, so no points. I have not looked at the cap and rotor yet. What gets me is the "ssshhh" sound

 

[FJmaine]

Update--

I dug into the distributor cap to see if there was anything amiss there. It looks like when I tried pulling the stump I must have had a more violent stop than I recall. It would appear that the rotor made contact with the side of the distributor cap and got some plastic debris on the rotor and all the contact points on the cap. Cleaned everything off and took it for a test drive. All better! I have a new cap an d rotor on order now.

 

[45Dougal]

Never seen that happen before unless the cap is loose - do you have a lot of play in your dizzy shaft bearings?

 

[FJmaine]

Never seen that happen before unless the cap is loose - do you have a lot of play in your dizzy shaft bearings?

I don't think the cap was loose, but it may have been. I haven't dug into the dizzy shaft

 

[pb4ugo]

What's the rotor look like?

 

[FJmaine]

What's the rotor look like?

Other than having some plastic from the cover on the contact surface, the rotor looked good. After I cleaned of the tip of the rotor and all the contact points, everything worked the way it should. I have new ones (cap and rotor) on order and will replace as soon as they get in.

 

[brian]

Im thinking a dissy should be on order....what happened shouldn't even be possible.

 

[FJmaine]

Im thinking a dissy should be on order....what happened shouldn't even be possible.

New cap and rotor should be here Friday

 

[pb4ugo]

Imo, that mark wasn't from anything spinning. I think It would have a longer scoring/scratch type mark. It looks like a stationary rotor blade was pressed into the cap. Even at idle the rotor would be spinning around 300+ rpm.