Vehicle Carb issue… or?

Even simpler check for an obvious vacume leak. With the car idling, take off the air cleaner and put your hand over the carb. If the engine doesn’t slow down, or it speeds up, you have a vac. leak.

I cant do either anymore.. the darn thing wont idle at all!

$1.99 for the carb gasket… Its a minimal donation to get it out of the way… and less than 10 minutes of work on this car. The intake/exhaust gasket(same gasket on this engine) is $18 if I find its leaking.

The valve/rocker arm cover has been leaking a little bit, I will check the valve clearance and lifters when I have the cover off to see if any obvious damage has occured.

I know one thing, by the time I find the problem I dont think this thing is ever going to break down.

Dave;
my suggestion, if you don’t have these tools already, is that since you are this far into the game, you need to have a “good” timing light, a compression tester, and get a vacuum gauge tester.

First thing is to run the compression tester on each cylinder. Make sure you have “adequate” compression in each cylinder.

Then, you “HAVE” to make sure the timing is set right.

Once that is done, do what Lenny said: Spray the ether around the motor, even if you are having someone hold the pedal down a bit. It will still make the motor rev. An open vacuum line will prevent a motor from idling.

Once you are sure there are no vacuum leaks, hook up the vacuum gauge/tester to a carb nipple. (I’m assuming that this carb/distributer has a vacuum line running from the carb to the distributer? If so, use that carb vacuum nipple)

Adjust the carb idle mixture screws to where the vacuum is reading its highest number. That is the “proper” way to set the idle mixture.

Once you have the timing and idle mixture set correctly, then start monitoring what the engine is doing/not doing with the motor reved, while watching the timing light on the harmonic balancer. The timing/ignition should advance. Make sure this is happening.

I’m starting to think that you have a faulty distributer, where your timing/ignition is not advancing when the motor is reved (vacuum?)

If your timing isn’t advancing, then you will not gain any power. If it is a “carb” issue, you will either be sputtering, spitting, backfiring, or flooding. If you are not getting gas, when you apply the pedal, you will starve out and die and the spark plugs should show this. They will be “bone dry”. If you are flooding, the plugs will show this as well, but being fouled.

I do not think changing this or that gasket is going to help. There are just too many gaskets involved to be guessing “maybe this one”.

Get the basics done first for the settings and check your distributer to make sure it is advancing properly.

Thanks Gary.. Thats very helpful.

I did use a good timing light on the motor yesterday(or day before), the timing was right on at what we assume was ultra close to the correct idle rpm’s(friend is an ASE certified mechanic I borrowed light from). Litterally it was +/- 1 degree from where it was supposed to be at. We checked the speed at idle, not reving the motor(we didnt think of it. Although, when we disconnected the vaccum line to the distributer it didnt want to idle at 1st and I had to rev it a hair.. I think(hope) he would have noticed if the tiing didnt advance… its usually very obvius to have the mark moving.

The reason I replaced the carb seat gasket is there was some white deposites on the exhaust manifold right by the carb.. an obvious sign of it getting gas on there(like a white gas fowled plug, but on the manifold). The car runs smoother, but it still doesnt idle. So I guess I avoided a future fix, and possible fire. Once I noticed those white deposits, it seemed obvious to me that air leaking below the carb would cause these same symptoms. For $1.99.. I had to try.

The lean can not be adjusted on this carb.. its all electronic. The only adjustments are the idle, and high speed idle(choke). I wish this was the normal carb without the elecronic adjustment… It keeps running through my mind the different sensors that could be malfunctioning, and telling the carb to do things it shouldnt be.

If I had the money, I would have already taken it to a shop for trouble shooting… unfortunately, its tough to get the money for parts, let alone a mechanic to go through it with the proper equipment on hand. I am getting very close to figuring out a way to get it to a mechanic, and have the money left for parts after.

ok;
that helps a bit!

With this Carb, is there just a simple “carb” or is there a mass-flow air sensor of any type prior to?

Reason I ask, is to make sure all and every port and “sensor” is clean of carbon build up and “soot”.

Be quite generous with carb-cleaner throughout the system.

However, I’m going to recommend that you doublecheck your timing to make sure it does advance.

Reason I state this, is for example: I had an 82 Camaro with a 2.8 v6. The distributor went bad on me. The car would start up, idle rough, and I couldn’t get the car to go over 50mph. I was at a total loss and completely confused. Drove it to a mech, he hooked it up the the computer and my distributor basically “broke”. It [censored] from original “computer” settings and would not advance.

Also, take note of any “white residue” on the outside of the motor is generally (but not always) antifreeze. When an intake manifold gasket, water pump, or head gasket starts to leak from a water jacket to the outside of the block, the sure-tell-tale sign is a white residue.

THAT is also TRUE on your spark plugs. If you have spark plug(s) that have a large residue of white powdery, chalk, sediment build up on the point or electrode, that is due to water/antifreese seepage from the water jacket into the cylinder. A leak (actually a “seepage” in true term as described) like this will not be quite so easy to notice on the exhaust with the large plums of white steam. Because the seepage is so light and minimal, you won’t see it from the exhaust, yet it is enough to foul a plug and give a vehicle no power.

I have no idea if it has a mass air flow sensor.. I looked it up on NAPA to see if they listed one for that car and they dont.. I will temporarily assume it doesnt have one. I also learned if its one of the carbs for these cars, it might have a throttle position sensor.. that would be a 1st for me on a carborated vehicle. I will go out and shovel through the vaccum lines and see if I can see one. This thing has all kinds of crap all over the place. There is more lines connecting to the air cleaner alone than many 80’s cars had for lines all together!

As for your bad distibuter.. I have had them before too on Subaru’s.. they throw you for a loop until they go out. I pulled the cap off and inspected the rotor on this one.. its brand new, along with the cap, plugs, and wires. I dont know what the old ones looked like, I wish I did(plugs). The rotor feels a little sloppy to me, it turns clockwise slightly on spring tension(normal), but it seems sloppy to me. There is no damage to the inside of the cap, or the rotor, so maybe its normal for this vehicle. I will get ahold of a light as soon as I can.

This thing is driving me nuts.. but it has to be fixed in a short period of time.

get a can of ether! You’ll find a leak as fast as you can press the button.

BUT do be carefull, because you are spraying a highly flammable gas on a “hot” engine. Shouldn’t explode, but it can indeed make a good flame thrower!

Also if you do get a flame or flash, look at the wiring (plug wires, etc).

A spray bottle of water will find arcs or shorts in your ignition system!

A can of either isnt going to work with me… nope. I am sure it would work, but I value my life more than I do any car. I already spent 2 years of my life in a wheelchair, 1/4 of that in a intesive care burn unit, and a whole lot of outpatient treatment. I have no interest in dealing with that again.. and learning how to walk again isnt much fun either.

I dont recommend anyone do anything with flammables that could get them in a bad situation.. me, I was siphoning gas out of my old suburban.. blown engine, no battery, nobody smoking, no other source of ignition… engineers decided it was static electricity that caused the spark.. which caused the explosion from gas vapors, which ignited me, the suburban, my pickup, and half my back yard.

Spraying either on a hot engine? Hell no… My nerves twitch when I smell gas!

If you are looking for short in your ignition system all you have to do is fire up the engine at night and open the hood. You will see them just fine.

Dave, where do ya live? Shoot me a PM.

Have you replaced that o2 sensor yet? Just a reminder incase you forgot with all the other potential issues. Could be somthing that easy.