L
lenny
Guest
Man, talk about bad luck or plain stupidity. I like to maintain my vehicles and do some of the easier repairs, brakes, water pumps that sort of stuff. So, my plow truck sits most the summer and I do drive it 4-5 times to just keep it running. I fire it up after siting for a 5-6 weeks and starts good, runs smooth but seems to idle real low upon coming to a stop. Eventually it started to die when coming to a stop but I figured it just needed to be run and I'd fill up with fresh fuel. Well I did fill up and no improvement, eventually the truck started chuggin and stalling in the road. Once I pulled over when it was chuggin and she died when I stopped and wouldn't re-start so I poped the hood, opened the lid off the air cleaner and hit the throttle by hand and did not see any fuel pumping so I figured I'd start with a fuel filter. I changed the filter and it fired right up, idled well but just down the street she died and after 5 minutes it would fire up and run for just a few minutes and die again like it running out of fuel. I have owned the truck for a little over a year and figured may have piece of mind and just change the mechanical fuel pump, easy enough right? Right! Changed the pump and no go, same exact situation, fires up, runs but dies after a few minutes and now it running rougher than ever. I had new gas, new filter, new pump, what else can I be missing. I look at the quadrajet carb and see there are plugs over the mixture screws and that tells me it has never been rebuilt so maybe I need to rebuild the carb. I rebuild the carb and it goes smooth, re-install and fire it up and runs good so I drive it down to the highway and she wont run over 35 mph so what the heck!!!!!!
I also had done the obvious look over to see if the cap , rotor and wires were fine and they looked recent and tidy. Vacuum lines looked well but some minor cracking. First thing I thought was I didn't get the carb clean but the fact that it ran good for a few minutes at a time lead me to believe the ignition and carb were fine. maybe the float adjustment I screwed up? Hmmmm,,,,,,. So I pull carb off again and can see much better all the lines and to my surprise I find a 1/2 vacuum line sitting on the exhaust crossovers on the intake manifold and say,, wow,, it's gonna be fixed! I had a line in my tool box and in minutes I fire it up and runs good so I go for a ride and it stalls in the road and will not restart. 5 minutes later it restart and I hobble it home just made it chuggin. I take the carb off again and decide to open it up and make sure I didn't screw something up in the carb bur soon as I get the carb off I see some cracks in other lines and think I may have the problem solved. My truck has 2 air pumps that inject air to keep the cat converter working good. I bought the truck and it didn't have a converter and the air pumps didn't have the belt on so I spin the pumps by hand and they are tight so I figure I will eliminate all the emission crap and eliminate many possible vacuum leaks. I get all that crap off in 1 hr and the engine bay looks all tidy and huge with all that junk gone. I did have to reconnect some vacuum lines like the erg and vacuum advance for the dis timing. I didn't think I would get into a mess with eliminating emissions but I sure did. I fire the truck up and it wont run but with the pedal half way to the floor and now I am at a total loss what to do next so I stand there studying my mess and see a pile of parts on the garage floor and like what did I just do! So, I run over to Pat's Yamaha and they have some really good guys working there and Jeff tells me to just keep the egr unplugged and that will not be an issue. I ask him about the other 5 ports on the carb which are now plugged and he says they are accessory lines and they are no longer needed as I eliminated the emissions (accessory.) After I unplugged the egr it fired up and ran smooth so I figured it's fixed so I run it down the road and she falls on her face again at 35 mph. I get the beast back home some how and am ready to climb the bluff out back and do a back flip right off the cliff. I drank a few beers and settled down a little and starred at it again for a while. I figure I will look at it one part at a time. I only have 2 vacuum lines now, one for the brake booster and the vacuum advance. I have no leaks so I am looking at all the ports on the manifold I plugged and start to think where I need to get vacuum at for the dis advance. I run over to Pat's again and ask Jeff and he tells me it needs to come from a port higher then the throttle plates and has no vacuum at idel and does have vacuum at increase rmp's. That makes sense since you normally check timing with the advanced unplugged. I check my source and realize I have the dis advance plugged into the wrong port and am all excited that I got the right one now and my timing will advance as I increase rpms on the highway,,, seems logical right? I drive it and get to the highway and at 35 mph she falls off again and now I am looking for a big tree and ready to yank the wheel right into the motha. Holy cow am I ever a mess and totally ticked. I get the pig home after 413 tries to this point and think, valves getting hot? What the heck?
I just seems like I'm not getting fuel and so I muster up some more courage and think, check the fuel volume flow. I call the carb rebuild place and they say I should be able to crank out with the starter 1 pint in 15 seconds of cranking. I grab a milk jug and tell my wife I need her help. She cranks the starter while I hold the fuel line in the jug and I get 3-4 ounces,,,what the heck. I take the filter off and crank with no filter and get major volume and say the filter is the problem. This was in the day light and I look at the gas in the jug and it's half water.Are you kidding me?
So now I need to drain the tank and it's not gonna happen through the filler neck. Fortunate for me my truck has no box and has wood for a flat bed. I pull off a few board and expose the sending unit opening and what a mess there. Lines rusty and crusty and I think there is no way I'm gonna get this thing apart without breaking something and it's gonna cost me hrs and lots of money. I did actually get it apart without breaking it. Me and a buddy siphon 12 gallons out and at the end I find 1.5 gallons of water that was in my tank,, can you believe it. I get er all cleaned out and back together and it's cold out. I fire it up and take it for a ride and it never has run so smooth.
Figures that I always get it fixed after a major ordeal. It really is funny how I created many problems for myself, thought a fixed it so many times with a huge vacuum leak, no advance,,,, etc. All this happened over a period a 4-5 days with a few hrs here and there so you can believe I was discouraged to the max. I've not beat the dog since I got the truck fixed ,,,, just kidding.
When I bought old blue from JD it had an overheating problem but I figured I'd fix that. Coolant was full and clean, so I changed the stat because it was easy and cheep, no luck. I Change the water pump because it was nasty looking and old,,no luck. I see some very small bubbles in the radiator white it is running and people tell me that the 4.3 has issue with intake gasket going bad so now I dig into that and change the intake manifold gasket which by the way means you take off many other things to do that job. put it back together and no luck. I now flush the entire system including the heater core and no luck. People say it has to be the heads so I tear it back down including the intake I just removed and installed and put new head gaskets on it. Fire it up and no luck, now I am looking for my gun,, bastage! Next I get on line and research and a guy says maybe you have air in your cooling system so I prop up the front end and leave the rad cap off over night and no luck. I figure, all the coolant I drained went back in so what the heck. Another guy says he had problems with cheap thermostats. I try another stat and no luck,,now I am on line looking for a one way ticket to Siberia and foaming at the mouth. My gosh,,, had the heads off, intake twice, who the heck am I to think I change a light bulb even!!!!!!!Now I have 1 week into this pile and no better than day one and just under $200 in parts. A guy on line private messages me and axxes* me it the stat I bought had a little hole in it and I replied no. He told me to drill a very small hole into the flange because OEM stats had a small hole. I yank it off and drill a tiny hold into it and now all of a sudden I am adding coolant like I had never before. My problem was I had air in the system. Now am I a genius or what?
This afternoon I have a little time and need to replace the rear rotors on the wife's mini van. I get the wheel, caliper off and rotor is stuck. I wrap on it, go to Pat;s and ask Jess what to do and he says work it off. I try for 1 hr and it's stuck so I put it back together,,,, I'm done!
I also had done the obvious look over to see if the cap , rotor and wires were fine and they looked recent and tidy. Vacuum lines looked well but some minor cracking. First thing I thought was I didn't get the carb clean but the fact that it ran good for a few minutes at a time lead me to believe the ignition and carb were fine. maybe the float adjustment I screwed up? Hmmmm,,,,,,. So I pull carb off again and can see much better all the lines and to my surprise I find a 1/2 vacuum line sitting on the exhaust crossovers on the intake manifold and say,, wow,, it's gonna be fixed! I had a line in my tool box and in minutes I fire it up and runs good so I go for a ride and it stalls in the road and will not restart. 5 minutes later it restart and I hobble it home just made it chuggin. I take the carb off again and decide to open it up and make sure I didn't screw something up in the carb bur soon as I get the carb off I see some cracks in other lines and think I may have the problem solved. My truck has 2 air pumps that inject air to keep the cat converter working good. I bought the truck and it didn't have a converter and the air pumps didn't have the belt on so I spin the pumps by hand and they are tight so I figure I will eliminate all the emission crap and eliminate many possible vacuum leaks. I get all that crap off in 1 hr and the engine bay looks all tidy and huge with all that junk gone. I did have to reconnect some vacuum lines like the erg and vacuum advance for the dis timing. I didn't think I would get into a mess with eliminating emissions but I sure did. I fire the truck up and it wont run but with the pedal half way to the floor and now I am at a total loss what to do next so I stand there studying my mess and see a pile of parts on the garage floor and like what did I just do! So, I run over to Pat's Yamaha and they have some really good guys working there and Jeff tells me to just keep the egr unplugged and that will not be an issue. I ask him about the other 5 ports on the carb which are now plugged and he says they are accessory lines and they are no longer needed as I eliminated the emissions (accessory.) After I unplugged the egr it fired up and ran smooth so I figured it's fixed so I run it down the road and she falls on her face again at 35 mph. I get the beast back home some how and am ready to climb the bluff out back and do a back flip right off the cliff. I drank a few beers and settled down a little and starred at it again for a while. I figure I will look at it one part at a time. I only have 2 vacuum lines now, one for the brake booster and the vacuum advance. I have no leaks so I am looking at all the ports on the manifold I plugged and start to think where I need to get vacuum at for the dis advance. I run over to Pat's again and ask Jeff and he tells me it needs to come from a port higher then the throttle plates and has no vacuum at idel and does have vacuum at increase rmp's. That makes sense since you normally check timing with the advanced unplugged. I check my source and realize I have the dis advance plugged into the wrong port and am all excited that I got the right one now and my timing will advance as I increase rpms on the highway,,, seems logical right? I drive it and get to the highway and at 35 mph she falls off again and now I am looking for a big tree and ready to yank the wheel right into the motha. Holy cow am I ever a mess and totally ticked. I get the pig home after 413 tries to this point and think, valves getting hot? What the heck?
I just seems like I'm not getting fuel and so I muster up some more courage and think, check the fuel volume flow. I call the carb rebuild place and they say I should be able to crank out with the starter 1 pint in 15 seconds of cranking. I grab a milk jug and tell my wife I need her help. She cranks the starter while I hold the fuel line in the jug and I get 3-4 ounces,,,what the heck. I take the filter off and crank with no filter and get major volume and say the filter is the problem. This was in the day light and I look at the gas in the jug and it's half water.Are you kidding me?
So now I need to drain the tank and it's not gonna happen through the filler neck. Fortunate for me my truck has no box and has wood for a flat bed. I pull off a few board and expose the sending unit opening and what a mess there. Lines rusty and crusty and I think there is no way I'm gonna get this thing apart without breaking something and it's gonna cost me hrs and lots of money. I did actually get it apart without breaking it. Me and a buddy siphon 12 gallons out and at the end I find 1.5 gallons of water that was in my tank,, can you believe it. I get er all cleaned out and back together and it's cold out. I fire it up and take it for a ride and it never has run so smooth.
Figures that I always get it fixed after a major ordeal. It really is funny how I created many problems for myself, thought a fixed it so many times with a huge vacuum leak, no advance,,,, etc. All this happened over a period a 4-5 days with a few hrs here and there so you can believe I was discouraged to the max. I've not beat the dog since I got the truck fixed ,,,, just kidding.
When I bought old blue from JD it had an overheating problem but I figured I'd fix that. Coolant was full and clean, so I changed the stat because it was easy and cheep, no luck. I Change the water pump because it was nasty looking and old,,no luck. I see some very small bubbles in the radiator white it is running and people tell me that the 4.3 has issue with intake gasket going bad so now I dig into that and change the intake manifold gasket which by the way means you take off many other things to do that job. put it back together and no luck. I now flush the entire system including the heater core and no luck. People say it has to be the heads so I tear it back down including the intake I just removed and installed and put new head gaskets on it. Fire it up and no luck, now I am looking for my gun,, bastage! Next I get on line and research and a guy says maybe you have air in your cooling system so I prop up the front end and leave the rad cap off over night and no luck. I figure, all the coolant I drained went back in so what the heck. Another guy says he had problems with cheap thermostats. I try another stat and no luck,,now I am on line looking for a one way ticket to Siberia and foaming at the mouth. My gosh,,, had the heads off, intake twice, who the heck am I to think I change a light bulb even!!!!!!!Now I have 1 week into this pile and no better than day one and just under $200 in parts. A guy on line private messages me and axxes* me it the stat I bought had a little hole in it and I replied no. He told me to drill a very small hole into the flange because OEM stats had a small hole. I yank it off and drill a tiny hold into it and now all of a sudden I am adding coolant like I had never before. My problem was I had air in the system. Now am I a genius or what?
This afternoon I have a little time and need to replace the rear rotors on the wife's mini van. I get the wheel, caliper off and rotor is stuck. I wrap on it, go to Pat;s and ask Jess what to do and he says work it off. I try for 1 hr and it's stuck so I put it back together,,,, I'm done!
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