I took my son downtown for a haircut this morning, when we were done, I couldn't get the car to run. At least it wouldn't keep running. Then after stalling, it acts like it's flooded. Grind on the starter for awhile, it would catch for a second then die. I've got fuel from the carb, spark from the coil and plug wires. Any clues out there?
Father in law and I will attack it in the morning. Drive or drag, it's coming home.
Howdy guys, thanks for the replies. We got it started and to my father in laws shop, so at least it will be warm and dry for the rest of winter.
It fired right up without any gas pedal, so the choke must have stuck yesterday and I flooded it. Short run, warm engine and cool wind.
As we were heading to the shop the car died after about a mile and wouldn't run when the accelerator was depressed. We changed the fuel filter and checked the pressure on the fuel pump it was at 4 lbs. Motors manual has the range of 3.5-5 lbs. for the '68 383/ auto/ 4bbl. so we are right there. The old filter wasn't plugged, so???
I posted this on CBDD also, and they all thought it may be the ballast resistor. As I'm a rank newbie, where is the ballast resistor? Is it with the points and rotor under the dist. cap?
On my grubby SF, the ballast resistor appears to be WAY over on the driver side of the firewall, a 3"x1/2" ceramic block with two wires. It appears to be above the master cylinder in this photo:
I can only ASSume that's where it is on "normal" cars... my PO was pretty squirrelly about some things. In others, this car is totally untouched.
I'd also bring along a known-good coil to check, if the ballast doesn't crap out on you.
Joined: Mon Oct 10 2005, 10:45PM
Location: Lansing MI
Posts: 513
That's where my ballast resistor is as well. Don't think that's likely the problem in this case though.
Basically they work like this:
The coil is designed to run on less than 12 volts, so when you turn on the ignition, the 12 v power feed goes through that resistor on it's way to the coil, so if the resistor burns out, you have no spark. On the other hand, they figured out that when starting the car, (A) the starter drains a lot of juice, and (B) extra spark will help get the thing started, so there is a separate power feed when you have the key turned all the way to start the car. This feed connects to the output end of the resistor rather than the input.
What this means is that if the resistor goes bad, the car may sound like it's starting, but as soon as you let off the key it dies.
I suppose your resistor could just have a loose wire that breaks the connection intermittently, but fuel problem seems more likely from the description.
Thanks for the lesson. Napa did sell me one of those, I didn't know what it was called. Nor had I installed it yet. (I probably would have had it not fired up earlier this summer.)
The car ran fine (rough, but no more stalls) after we swapped filters. I'm going to finish tuning her up and then we'll see. I didn't change the points or condensor? last summer, I'll finish that up.
Clair, I have every confidence that your SF will come into it's own with your massaging. Besides, it's a vert 440! Thanks anyway.
Joined: Sat Dec 10 2005, 04:28PM
Location: United States
Posts: 4954
Well I can honestly say, I just went through this with Johns the mobster's car.
He came up here Saturday and I repaired the Holley on his 72 New Yorker. No rebuild, just an open up and TLC. Car ran beautiful. Best it has ever run for John.
On the way home, it crapped on him. He was 2 blocks from home. I went down to his house Yesterday and did open heart again. The tiniest piece of dirt in the metering tubes. Oddly enough, the car would bearly run.
My point is, since your car has been sitting around, you might want to investigate the posibility your carb needs some work.
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Mon Jan 23 2006, 08:16AM ]</span>