My 70 Dart
- Thread starter Louie70Dart
- Start date
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Well, I went and bought a house with a nice big garage. A 26x26 garage. More than enough room to finish the painting. Not heated, yet. I'll post some pics of the garage when I can. I will close on the 20th, the one of the first things I will do is get the car moved. All for now.
FomocoReformed
Well-Known Member
I feel your pain working in an unheated garage. 
rotest:
Car's looking great keep at it! and what a deal you got on those X heads! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous...
rotest:Car's looking great keep at it! and what a deal you got on those X heads! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous...
jw_german
Well-Known Member
Your car is looking great!!! I have never had a garage to work in, so thats great that you will have a nice garage to work in, to bad it aint heated. if ya can pick up a little a wood stove until you can get a better heating system for it if your planning too, then you can have some good old fashioned coffee in there too!!
Ok, car is in the new home. Driver who towed it had a '74 Duster at one time. Unfortunately, it had to go. He looked at mine for about 30 seconds without doing anything. And it is nowhere near done. So, I need to finish the move and wait for warm weather. Thanks for the nice words!
Just been moving stuff around and getting settled in at the new house. I did buy the HEI distributor off Ebay from Skip White. Got it this week and got it in today. Fairly simple, when they say hook up two wires only, its only two wires. Just had to get a hoop connector for the hot wire from the dist. The car started, but runs like crap. No, it's not out of time, no backfiring or anything like that. And I only had to do this once!!! I'm stuck using the old plug wires that don't hold very well to the posts on the cap. I messed up and got the wires with the 90 degree boots. No room at the plugs. But the car will start. Gonna get another boot set, and a hotter coil. Also got another fuel filter. The filter don't seem able to get the gas into it. So far so good.
Glad the move is going good for ya. I been thinking of the HEI conversion as well. I have gone throu 2 ECU's in 3 months. Gotta be a better way. Hope you get the crappy out of the motor and running smooth again.
Well, this morning I got the car started with out doing anything. Just pump the peddle a few times. Car ran ok when cold, but after warming up it will start right up and idle good, give it any gas and it dies out. Hmmmm? Still not a lot of gas in the fuel filter. Like I said, car will start right up with just a touch to the key, I advance the dist. any and nothing. Not sure what next. Am going to get a timing light and see just where I am for that. More later. Oh, with new dist., car idles a whole lot better.
I got new 8.5mm wires in, but same old tired coil. Car does run, but bogs when I give it gas. See the picture, the vacuum advance is cranked way over so far that I can't leave the coil on the intake. If I move farther ccw it will die and be hard to turn over. Sign to me that it is too far advanced. If I turn it to far cw it starts easier until it backfired and died. I think I got it somewhere in the middle. I NEED to get a timing light! I did notice on the distributor that the tang does not line up with the rotor. But it does start. I'm thinking it's the old crappy gas from last summer, about nine months old. When it sits for a while it will start and run ok, I can even work the throttle with no problem, but when it gets warmer, fugetaboutit. Almost forgot, I put a new fuel filter in and the thing filled up right away. I can't remember, do these carbs have a filter in them? Thanks.
Ok, these carbs do not have a filter in them. But look at the picture, the yellow arrow points the the accelerator pump linkage. I bent that to see if that would help. It seems that it did. I was using the gas linkage and there was no bogging or popping through the carb. It seems that all this play has gotten me low on gas as the filter is starting to empty. I'm going to go get five gallons and see if that changes anything. I did borrow a timing light from a buddy at work and I got it at TDC. At least it's heading in the right direction.
gerahead
Glutton for Punishment
Try moving the linkage with the yellow arrow to the outboard hole. You will get more pump stroke with the linkage movement. That is unless you are trying to reduce the fuel that you are getting with the tromp! L8r
Thanks for the suggestion, I thought about that also. I put 5 gallons in it. The filter wouldn't fill. It would start and idle, but thats all the gas it was getting. LOL. I still have not felt like taking a hammer to it! Don't solve a thing. Well, I took a break cause the battery was low. Then a few minutes ago, I thought maybe the gas cap was causing a vacuum. When I looked at the filter before doing anything, it was full of gas. Go figure. The car would start and idle, but thats all. I'm thinking the carb and the fuel lines are all gunked up. I will fire up the compressor this weekend and try doing a back blow through the line from the fuel pump back. Not a long term fix, just seeing if crap is plugging it up. Also get a rebuild kit for the carburetor and do that. Can't hurt it. Tomorrow is another day.
Two days later after work I try it again. Battery has enough charge to crank over, so time to try it. Well, I did, took my moving the distributor around to finally get it to run. Also adjusted the accelerator pump lever. Problem is I have to run it at a high idle to keep it going. What I did is I disconnected the fuel line before the inline filter. Cranked it to see if the pump was working. It was. Then I went and putzed around with the timing. I had the light still, but could not see the mark at all. Must of moved the balancer from the backfires. I'm gonna let it sit for a couple of hours and try it again after its cooled down. I think the carb needs rebuilding, or get a remaned one. Thanks for reading.
rgreule
Well-Known Member
Nice work. So far so good.
I went out to work Friday morning and one pump on pedal and turn key and whoom. Started up right away and ran no problem. Mash the gas and no popping through the carb. Came home from work and did same thing, one half mash on pedal to give it a squirt and set choke and it started right up. Cool! Bad thing is when I was messing around with all the wrong things on the carb to get it to run, I have the mixture screws wrong. See the picture, it shows the low speed or idle screw? Is the rough setting 2 1/2 turns out from lightly seated? Reason I ask is I have the idle set real high. If I turn the idle down the cars dies out and won't idle. Thanks.
gerahead
Glutton for Punishment
turn 'em in until the engine starts to stumble. Then back out ~1/2turn. Do one at a time. L8r
72Dodge
Well-Known Member
Totally unrelated, but you might want to look into a metal fuel filter too, just for safety's sake. At least yours is up high, but still. Edit: I see you're using the clear one to troubleshoot.
Thanks gerahead, I will do that when I get the chance. It seems that the car will start and run, then die after about 30 seconds. I got the skip white distributor in it now. When I hook up a timing light to it, the light will flash like its supposed to at first, then start to space out then quit altogether, thats when the engine dies. It has a new coil in it, I will change over to the old one and see if that changes anything. Maybe the GM electronics in the new dist. Don't know, will have to trouble shoot it. Thanks for the tips everyone.
I called up the place that I bought the distributor from. So far I don't feel satisfied with the customer service. I know the thing only cost about $60, but it's still money spent. I called up one time and talked to the rep, and was told that either they would call me the next morning, or a tech would. I waited all day then called after I got home from work. I asked them where I could buy a new module, could I have the part number. Told that one would be sent the next day, that would be Wednesday. I haven't given up on them yet, but am becoming frustrated. Almost ready to say the heck with it and just get the Mopar one with a magnetic pick up with box, harness and ECU. PnP, plug and play. At least parts would be easier to find. Sorry, no pics, LOL.
Wow, I'm pumped! Looking through craigslist recently, I saw that someone has a 340 for sale. For $2200. With six pack and carbs. Don't know what year yet, pictures didn't show. I will see it at 7:30pm.
Is this too good to be true?
Is this too good to be true?
72Dodge
Well-Known Member
There's 340's on CL around here all the time for some reason. I picked up one last year and thought about buying several more, but I kept my crazy in check and didn't. Granted, none of the others had six-packs on them. I somehow missed this one. Good luck!
Ok, I went ahead and bought the engine in my last post. I got it home today and pulled the odd bank head. It has some surface rust, but I wiped it some and thought I could see crosshatch from the hone job. I do know that there is NO ring ridge! It was locked up, but I was able to get it to turn over with out having to go crazy with the muscles. Just a pair of vise grips on the crank bolt off the balancer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I did see that the intake is a edelbrock LD6B? And a August 70 build date, so that makes it for 71 model year? Thanks.
72Dodge
Well-Known Member
Congrats! That's awesome. I'm jealous of the 6-Pack! Like I was saying to you earlier, it's a very warm feeling having a 340 in the garage, I can't imagine not having one, running or not.
Well, been working on the sanding. I went overboard with the 80grit so I've had to resand with 220 grit. Still having to fill low spots, but I am making headway. Now I can see why it takes some time to block the car. You might not see or feel the bad spots at one time. Going to the car shows makes me antsy to get mine going. Made a connection to get the chrome pieces for the trunk lid and extensions. When I get farther I'll post up some pictures.
Ok, weather was nice today; in the 70's. So I went out and put two coats of primer surfacer on the car. Used a pressure pot for the first time. A little to awkward to handle for me. I have another system I'll go with from now on, the 3M inserts with cups. Easier clean up with that. Back to the story, I've scuffed the car with the green scotch-brite pad, would've used the maroon but hard to find and expensive, green works as well. Taped the windows up and did the deed. Stuff takes about 3 to 4 hours to cure. I'll wait until tomorrow to be sure. Hopefully the blocking will show I did ok. Time will tell. Thanks for reading.
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