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what is going on here

774 views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  22GT 
#1 ·
SO, i was having rough idle problems ever since i bought this vehicle.

My mechanic says he believed after compression tests and vacuum tuning the carb that he suspected the distributor was to blame.

Went and spent 80 bucks on a new one (made in china)

turns out it fixed the problem for 8 months.

smooth idle, smooth operation.

a week and a half ago, the car acts real funny and after re-diagnosing it again, we came to the conclusion it was a faulty dizzy.

The guys at the parts shop were kind enough to swap one out for a refurbished motorcraft (made in the usa) dizzy.

Which fixed the problem, until yesterday.

My s10 daily driver truck is down waiting for a fuel pump to arrive, so the fastback is my daily driver until then.


I drove it 2 days this week, and it ran like a dream, then last night on the way back from practice at 10pm, it was a cool night, it starts to get flat-spotty after half way throttle, and begins to bog.

Eventually i cant get it to stay running, and it dies on the side of a quiet residential neighborhood

Unfortunately, my timing gun was dead so in pitch dark, im trying to figure out how to not call a tow.

Alas, i was unable to get her to start and stay running.

I dont want to keep throwing money at the wrong parts but dont know why it would just give up.

Fuel, Spark, Compression right?

Never seen 3 little pieces of the puzzle give me such a hard time.

I bought these older cars so i could try to fix auto issues myself...

Any thoughts?

Do you think the carb adjustment screws may have backed themselves out or....?

IDK.

Before i take it to a mustang shop and get hosed, i thought i would inquire here.

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#6 ·
So I wanted to take a minute and close this thread...

What the problem was (again) turned out to be faulty points and condenser.

Apparently, when they rebuild these Distributors (also new distributors), they put the cheapest condenser and points in them .... it failed after 4 days, so we put in Blue Streak points and condenser.

Hopefully that solves the problem, i drove it home and it ran just fine.

How long it lasts?

ONLY time will tell.
 
#8 ·
Apparently, when they rebuild these Distributors (also new distributors), they put the cheapest condenser and points in them .... it failed after 4 days, so we put in Blue Streak points and condenser.
They don't adjust the advance curves, either, so it's a pretty good bet that your performance and fuel economy suck compared to what you should be getting.
 
#7 ·
Here's a shot in the dark. I had a '68 that kept burning points on a high dollar dual point distributor. It was a daily driver and I finally decided to convert to a duraspark system for reliability.

When I hacked my harness to wire in the controller, I discovered a PO had done a harness repair and spliced a second resistor into the primary circuit. My issue had been low voltage to the points the whole time.

The lesson for me was to not take anything for granted and don't skip the basics. I would check your coil (check it hot too) and primary circuit. Multiple failures of any part in a system generally indicate that part is resultant damage of another issue.

Good luck!
 
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