Connie is kicking my a**

[danleblanc]

Yup. Never been beat up by a girl before, but Connie is kicking my a**.

So, I've had her running (not well, but running) since I got her. Usually would start on her own with a lot of coaxing, but hey, she's been sleeping for many years, her gas isn't the freshest, but it's mostly burned out.

Come last week, went to start her, flooded. Pulled the plugs, dried them out (plugs, wires, rotor, and cap are new within the last 3 weeks). Let it sit overnight plugs out, tried again, flooded.

Fast forward to last weekend. I pulled the plugs on Sunday, dried them out. Oxy/Acetylene torch in each spark plug hole (yeah, I know, not the smartest). Cranked over engine with plugs out, added a squirt of oil down each spark plug hole, cranked over some more to distribute. Pulled the carburetor, left it off overnight. Yesterday, reinstalled the spark plugs, installed a less sketchy carburetor, hooked it all up, shot of starting fluid down her throat, and figured it should start. Nope! I get a grunt or two out of it when hitting the starter, but not enough to actually start.

Could it be that after sitting overnight with the plugs out and carb off that it's still not dried out enough yet? Last night I used my timing light and checked for spark at all the plugs. Fire there. Primary resistance in the coil is 1.8 ohms. Secondary resistance in the coil is 8600 ohms. Seems to be within spec. Marked the position of the distributor and tried rotating the distributor while hitting the starter and that had no effect either.

Like I say, she's kicking my ass just trying to get her running again. The only thing I haven't done is a compression test.

Is leaving the plugs out overnight and attempting to burn fuel out of the cylinders with a torch enough to dry out a badly flooded engine?

I'm grasping at straws here.

Oh, and the water pump started pissing last night also.

Who said that waking cars up from a long slumber is fun???

[action]

Isolating the issue to fuel or ignition would be important.

BTW - opening the carb all the way for about 10 minutes should clear out a flooded engine.

If you have the spark plugs out now and a remote starter, a quick and EZ step would be to crank with (coil disconnected) a finger tip over a spark plug hole.
Does it develop pressure on the compression hole?
Or if you have access to a compression tester now would be an excellent time to run that test if for no other reason to have the data.
IF all good ....

Connecting the timing light to #1 and cranking the engine, does the light hit close to the timing mark?
Doesn't have to be perfect. Just close.
If light hits close to the mark then ....

Connect everything and pump an ounce or two of fuel down the carb and crank.
If no start, you might see if there is fuel in the carb bowl.

Another area would be to make sure you have fast enough engine cranking speed. A low battery may not crank the starter fast enough.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Action

[TonyC]

Sorry for all the trouble. She does sound sick somewhere, and I'm thinking it's a fuel or fire issue. I know that the carburetors and the ignition control modules of that decade were sources of trouble. But you said you swapped carburetors, and the distributor pieces are recent. But what about the control module? Was that ever changed? Being an electronic piece, it could be trying to fool you with sending some fire but not enough to spark the fuel.

I'm only guessing.

---Tony

[danleblanc]

The coil and ignition module appear to be original. It may not hurt to perhaps throw those on? It's times like these that make me love points and condenser even more!

[danleblanc]

Tried a new coil and ignition module tonight. No change. It kicks on a couple of cylinders but that's about it. I put the original carburetor on, buttoned it all back up, and walked away.

I've come to the conclusion that it's likely very badly flooded.

We've sold our house and are moving at this time next week. Once we settle in and get a few projects out of the way at the new house I'll have to dive into it more.

The crappy thing is I drove it around the subdivision and put 2.9 miles on it (albeit very slowly and it would barely make it up a hill), parked it, and now nothing.

[action]

Hopefully the timing chain has not worn to the point it jumped a tooth.

>>>>>>>Action

[danleblanc]

I'm not entirely ruling out a bad timing chain either.

The previous rough running might be due in part to a split rubber connector between the carburetor and hard PVC line. In the process of removing it, I found that it had broken nearly in two. An obvious huge vacuum leak I should have missed.

I haven't been able to start the car though to test that out.

[Dan Szwarc]

is the engine truly flooding or is this just an ignition problem or spark plug fouling problem?

Floats set correctly? Choke closed to 1/16" when starting cold? Spark plugs in the correct firing order (easy to mess up when changing wires).

Base timing OK? Can you start the car with starting fluid?
What happens if you crank while someone moves the distributor back and forth across the adjustment range (try to find a starting point to retime the distributor)?

I'm assuming this is for your 77.

[danleblanc]

Spark plugs are clean as a whistle.

I haven't opened up the carburetor, but it definitely needs to be gone through. It ran with it before, just not very well.

Car will not start with starting fluid.

I have tried cranking while moving the distributor slowly as far as it would go in each direction from where it was set at hoping I could find a sweet spot. Zilch.

Yup, this is the 77

I will drive it someday!!!

[Dan Szwarc]

It is my experience that timing lights are too sensitive to detect weak spark.

If you're not super-experienced with cars, just go back and double check that you have all the plug wires correct.
If the car never ran well, even before you bought it, you may need a new timing chain and gear.

400 or 460?

[danleblanc]

I've got some pretty decent experience with cars. I've rebuilt a couple of Cadillac 390 engines so far. Built a 62 Coupe de Ville out of a couple of cars and am now getting ready to rebuild the refrigeration side of the climate control in my 70 deVille Convertible.

I'm well aware of the nylon tipped timing chain problem in Cadillacs. This is my first Ford project and didn't realize until recently that Ford used them also. I know that age is detrimental to the gears so I'm not completely ruling that out.

I'm going to do a compression test when we get settled in the new house. Should give me a better idea of condition.

Oh. And it is a 460.

[TonyC]

Yes, with the ignition ruled out and the carburetor mostly ruled out, the next step would be to check the engine itself with a compression check and timing set inspection. It's too bad the engine won't run long enough to check the ignition timing, which could tell if the chain slipped.

There is something else I advise you check for when you go on after the timing components (which you'll want to do anyway, regardless of the cause of Connie's woes: Check for a steel plate behind the water pump. There is a reason I say this; I did a write-up for it on someone else's thread. It has to do with a design flaw in the front cover, which could cause fatal problems. I'm not saying this is the cause, because if you don't have coolant mixed in your oil, then it hasn't happened. But it could if that plate is missing.

---Tony

[jon schapiro]

Dan -

As to flooding, I would think using the unloading function of holding the accelerator to the floor for 30 seconds would be sufficient to clear out excess fuel. I'm tending to think it's the electronic module. I would also remove the distributor cap and see if anything looks strange in there e.g. Brown dust, carbon traces, burnt rotor tip.

[dcm5652]

Check the mudule on the fender. It will go bad and start missing and then not enough spark to start the engine. Also check the pick-up in the distributor they will go bad and start on time and not the next then start again. Get a paper towel and out it down the Carb throat and pump the gas a few times to get a wet spot on it and take it out and set it on fire to make sure that you are burning gas and not water. If the paper burns to the wet spot you have water, if the flame jumps to the wet spot you have gas.

[LC67Vert]

While you must make sure you have proper fuel and spark one thing is less obvious is a problem with the exhaust system. My Studebaker Lark V8 had been off the road for a year and a half as body work was being done. The car ran perfectly when I left it at the bodyshop but when I went to pick it up it would not start. After doing a full tune up and carb rebuild I still could get not get my engine started. The engine sounded like it was about to start but it died as soon as I stopped cranking it. Then one time I went to try and miraculously it started right up and fell into a perfect idle BUT that is when I noticed the exhaust was noticibly louder than usual. It turned out mice had made a nest in the exhaust system. The blockage in the exhaust caused too much backpressure for the engine to start. At some point there was enough pressure to cause a leak in the exhaust system and that was when I got a bit lucky because I had stumbled on a solution to the problem I had been unable to solve. Once I fixed the exhaust all was well.