Some of you may remember this thread http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=77383 well, since then I've set the timing at 36 degrees total, 22 from mechanical advance and 14 at the balancer. Last Oct 29, it was about 60 degrees out and I had roughly 10 gallons of Torco 110 in the tank. I drove it around for about 40 miles and no pinging. I'm thinking great, might have finally solved my problems. The car is running REAL rich though since I took the car out because it needed emissions tested. Well fast forward over the winter, did minor things here and there (mainly start the car and use it as a shelf) but mainly worked on my 70 F-85. A few weeks ago I went back to the W-31 and installed a new Modine 4 row radiator as the original was leaking (I kept the original for now and will get it recored). I also replaced the $@%^%&$% stainless steel trans cooling lines with regular steel. about 8 days ago I took the car out, put in 10 gallons of 100 Rockettbrand and drove about 20 miles. It was roughly 57 degrees out and the timing was still 36 total. Pinging again. So today after taking my mom out for dinner I retarded the timing roughly 2 degrees and took the car out again. It was approx 57 degrees out and the car ran great. No pinging. I'm thinking great, I can take the car to the IL/IN National H/O day on Sat. I get about half a mile if that from home and the car dies. Since my fuel gauge doesn't work (I replaced the sending unit but thats not the issue, obviously) I though I was out of fuel. Pour a couple gallons inm crank the car and nothing. The car cranks over fine. I remove the air cleaner lid and confirm fuel squirting in the carb, so it's not a fuel issue. I then hook up a timing light, crank the engine, no spark. hmmmm. Check all my plug wires, check the wires at the coil, notice a big puddle of fuel on the intake :shock: , call my brother and we end up pushing the car home using his car. We get spark back, but the carb is leaking fuel from several places it seems now :af: but the car still won't start. She turns over fine, but nothing. :af: So the car is parked indefinitely while I figure out WTF is going on. I'm really bummed to say the least. I won't even begin to tell you about the personal hell I've been through the last few weeks, but working on the car and taking it to the H/O day was part of my therapy. Well, I'm really bummed now since the car isn't going anywhere. :ball: I need to talk to the guy who did the carb and see what we can do. If he's not going to help me, I may have to see about sending it out somewhere again. :af: I'm a beginner when it comes to carbs. And I don't have another carb laying around ready to bolt on. I also still have the blasted oil leak from the distributor. Distributor was rebuilt, new rubber o-ring twice, new bearing and I even put an o-ring between the housing and the block, still friggin leaks :af: just enough to be annoying. The new trans cooling lines did fix my trans fluid leak so at least thats one issue solved. I'm debatting if I should just tear part of the car apart and fix a bunch of things that I've been putting off because the car is sooo much fun to drive ...... when it cooperates.
Chris, I say start the full restoration and have other headaches to worry about That way you'll forget this fuel problem Matt
Chris, Give me a call if you want. We can go over a couple things on the phone. I can also look at your carb for reasonable money as well as put your distributor on my dist machine and verify that all is functioning properly. Casey -- 734-439-1065
Chris: Are you running points still? Don't ask me why, but my car used to eat them up when it was new. 6000-8000 miles and it would just quit like yours. Farted with the fuel system and finally gave up and decided it had to be towed in, so I put in a new set of points just so the dealer wouldn't charge me for a tuneup again and it cleared everything up..Points removed looked like new. o No: o No: Same thing happened on a friend's new 70 350 Camaro about the same time. It was only a coupla months old and we farted with his Qjet for 4 days before finally giving up and putting in another set of points and condenser. Never another problem. ????? o No: ???????????? Also had a shorted wire under the breaker plate that killed our new 1972 Cutlass Supreme right in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel. That was nice. My 65 442 used to have this incessant pinging problem. Finally put a ball bearing in the vacuum advance hose to block it (was a restored car), and retuned for mech and initial advance only. Solved the on-road pinging problem immediately. o No: o No: o No: Put an HEI in that car just for grins, and it ran like a raped ape. May want to try a quick swap and see what happens. Your MPH and et's were so far off last year, you definitely had some timing problem. Know who built your motor. Don't think that's a problem. Try another distributor on a pokey-yokey. See if the problem follows the distributor, then dive in. :beer
thanks Casey, I'll give you a call tomorrow evening, if thats ok. Dave, no points. running a pertronix. motor was broken in using a 69 350 4bbl distr that was just take out of a 56K mile motor and put into mine. It was pinging pretty good with that one. Distr in there now is my original that was rebuilt. The only other known good distr, and when I say good I mean it's in my running 70 F-85, that I have I could take from my F-85. Only thing I did with that one is install a pertronix. I actually did toy with the idea of swapping coils or distr with my F-85, but my brother and I got spark back. The brown tach wire to the coil was about broken, so we put a new connector on.
Casey's good at setting those up. He still doesn't trust electronics, though. :laugh: :laugh: Remove the Pertroniks before you send it to him as it won't come back with it! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: If you can get it running again, try plugging off your vacuum advance. When new, they hold the timing back for cruising, but release and let the distributor go to full mechanical advance when the vacuum drops off as the throttle is pushed farther for more power. A worn vac advance unit (or incorrect one) lets that happen at a much lower vacuum level, maybe at cruising. A bigger cam also can do that since the vacuum levels are much lower. I'm sure your car has a factory cam, right?, so that should already be OK. W31 distributors were unique for the mechanical and the vacuum advance functions. When yours was rebuilt, was the correct vac advance unit used? You can always play with the mech curve, but more difficult with the vac advance. Easiest to just plug it. If that solves the problem (as it did on my 65 442), it wasn't worth pursuing further.
the vac adv hose has been pulled and plugged. It's been like this for this a while. It appears to me a "chevy style" vac adv unit was put on when the distr was rebuilt. The nipple for the vac hose goes straight out versus the 90 degree one that was taken off. I still have the original as it was sent back with the rebuilt distr. Based on what you are saying, I most likely do have the wrong vac adv unit. The cam is a General Kinetics W-31 grind. 474 lift 308 degree. Months ago I tried searching for info on it to find the lobe seperation angle, but no luck. I have the cam card but it doesn't list the LSA. The cam is advanced 4 degrees and a lot of people are telling me thats part of the problem with the pinging. installing it straight up is the best.
for some reason my previous post never, well, posted. anyway, after playing phone tag with casey :grin: and talking with a few people the carb was most likely flooded. either a stuck float or debris between the needle and seat. She runs and drives now. again. I took the car out this weekend in the 90 degree heat, retarded the timing another couple degrees, put in 9 gallons of Rockettbrand 100 and there is pinging sometimes. Guess it just depends, I can probably live with it. I put roughly 80 miles on the car. I also went over to a friends and took him and his 10 year old gear head son for a quick cruise and it didn't ping which is good. She never really got hot according to the gauge either. I have rallye gauges and the needle was planted firmly on the 1/4 mark, half way between L and the mid point. The fuel gauge is working again too o No: :spank: There has to be an electrical issue somewhere, so I need to start chasing that down. but all in all, the odds are good I'll be taking the car to the local Downers Grove cruise this friday.
