dmc83RX

83 12A, I got it running great about 3 months ago. Over the last few days, it will intermittantly stop idleing, and about half throttle, it starts to sputter. It will run good for a few miles, then bad. I can be at a red light, the idle is at 750, then it will drop, sometimes to around 300, sometimes to zero. Fuel filter is new. Any suggestions?

rotarycrazy

iTrader: (8)

how old are the spark plugs are all the conections good for the igniters and such check the carb for fuel spray pater see maybe it has crap in it. Also where in SC are you?

dmc83RX

I'm in Gaffney. The plugs are 4 months old. I just checked and there was no gas in the front bowl. I blew out the lines. The bowl has gas in it now. I will check it while it is running tomorrow.

jseeger

I had a somewhat similar problem, it turned out to be the cam follower on the distributor was worn down and the points were closing. The difference was that the system backfired quite a lot and the catalic convertor burned up and created a bad exhaust leak. Patched up the leak and adjusted the points (with a little grease on the cam) and everything fell back in place. This is on my one owner '79 (bought it new in '78.)

yetterben

Fuel filter?

dmc83RX

I changed the filter as soon as the problem started. Today, when I let it stall at idle, it was hard to start and when it did, black smoke from the exhaust. When I got home and cut it off, all of the fuel drained out of the front bowl (I couldn't see the rear bowl) after I cut it off and when I looked in the carb, there was gas pooled up on top of both the primary and secondary throttles.

rotarycrazy

iTrader: (8)

that doesnt sound good has the carb ever bin rebuilt and how many miles is on the motor? If the carb is old then you might have blown some seals out and thats why its flooding like crazy as far black smoke goes it could be many different things.

dmc83RX

The engine has 150,000. I rebuilt the carb about 2500 miles ago. I am going to pull it off to see if I have junk in the bowl causing problems. I have some rust in the tank and I believe I let the filter go too long.

dmc83RX

Flooding problem solved. Dirty bowls and partialy restricted fuel return line. Now I need to figure out which valve in the emissions system is causing my idle and acceleration problem.

rotarycrazy

iTrader: (8)

or you could just rip all that **** out and dont bother with it.

dmc83RX

I thought about it. A local muffler shop told me they believe SC will start doing emissions testing again in the next couple of years.

dmc83RX

The idle and acceleration problem turned out to ba an intermittantly bad leading igniter.