My daily driver is kaput!

Vehicle is a 1984 5.0l HO with rebuilt factory 4bbl carb. Ever since the exhaust was done there have been some odd issues. The car starts and runs okay when it is dead ass cold (i.e. I park it at 5pm, then start it the next morning at around 6:45a). Choke works. Once the choke finally settles down the car idles and runs fine.

So...my commute to work is about 30 minutes. I park my car at about 7:30a. I then go to lunch at around 11:30a. Car cranks up on the first try, but the idle is very low (500 or less). It won't stay running unless I keep my foot in the gas. After about 15 minutes of driving, the idle finally "levels out" a bit and the car will stay running at just under 750 (lower than usual). This pretty much happens 100% of the time if the car hasn't sat overnight.

Today the same thing happens. I get in my car to go home from work. Low idle, stalls a couple times, runs like shit, etc. The car starts running "normal" when I get off I4 and head through downtown tampa (still idling a bit low at around 750, and the car hiccups at speed). I make it to the middle of the elevated portion of the crosstown when shit its the fan. The car is still running, but when I hit the gas nothing happens. I coast to a stop and the car dies. I am able to restart, but I can't really drive much over 40mph in 4th gear...the car is hiccuping and running like shit the entire time.

I call it quits, pull over, call AAA, and open the hood. Everything looks good. Coil is hooked up, no loose wires...looks okay. The car will crank but it won't idle.

Car has new plugs, wires, cap/rotor. Has what looks to be the original coil and ignition. The carburator is a piece of shit rebuild that leaks a very very small amount of fuel out of the front bowl. All of the emissions shit and the associated vaccuum lines are gone or capped.

So what could be the issues? Need help ASAP!

 

Blown headgasket?

 

are you guessing?



id start with the original ignition and shitty carb.

 

start off with the carb..look it over..check the bowl level,see if u got gas coming out of all for holes,make sure nothing is blocking anything.

rebuild kit is only 40$..

 

I'd rebuid that ol carb,asap.

 

Definately found a problem...not sure if it is THE problem though. There are two small gauge wires going into the coil. One of them was down to one strand of copper and it broke as I was trying to remove the wire from the harness itself. Guess this is a good opportunity to upgrade & relocate the coil from the intake manifold to the fender well.

Hoping this is the only issue, but it still doesn't explain why the car runs well after a cold start as opposed to a warm/hot start.


The carburator isn't that old. It has about 2-years on a rebuild. According to the seller, it was rebuilt by a company that specialized in the OE Ford/Holley carbs. A Holley Street Avenger carb is on my Christmas wish list...but Christmas may come early at my own expense this year.

 

its really not hard to rebuild a holley carb..

u check out racingjunk.com and see if some one is selling a carb that will fit your needs.

 

I have the original 4180 Ford/Holley sitting in storage and I'm tossing around the idea of a rebuild to save some money. I know jack shit about carburators, but I really want to learn the in's and out's....so I'm thinking maybe tackling a rebuild would be a good way to learn. Does the Holley rebuild kit provide thorough enough instructions to complete the task? I'm confident I can tackle practically any mechanical task so long as I have a good set of instructions and the proper tools/parts.

 

all you need to rebuild is a screwdriver and wrench.

 

I had a similar problem with my 89gt that it would run ok when cold but as it got up to temp or I drove it for a little bit the damn thing would try to die and if you gave it gas it didn't do anything. The problem started out slowly but ended up leaving me stranded one day.

My problem ended up being a bad inner peice of the dizzy. I beleive it was the stator? Either way when it would warm up caused all sorts of hell. That along with the pip controls the fuel pump on the efi cars and was actually stopping and starting the pump when it got hot. That was once of the most pia thing to find I ever had on that car, bet I spend 3 weekends fiddling around with it before I got it narrowed down.

Hope that you get it figured out.