'78 regal - running rough

So it was a little snowy this morning; I had to do a little jostling around to get the car out of my driveway. once I got it out (after about half an hour of trying to get it out) the car started idling really low. When I shut it off, it wouldn't start up again. It turned over fine but it would just sort of sputter out, even with the throttle completely open. After waiting about 20 minutes, it started up perfect and ran great.

Then, as I was driving around town later on (after about 30 minutes of driving) I pulled up at a stop light and it just started to run really rough out of the blue. No noise or anything to indicate something went wrong, it just started running real choppy. Its been running like that all day now. It still starts right up, and i don't notice a loss of power and it doesn't cut out when I floor it either but When coming off the throttle it kind of sputters a little bit. Can someone help? I'm really frustrated now because its always ran great until this happened, now its like i'm driving a giant lawn mower. The motor is completely stock as well.

 

it could be the carb iceing up. does it have the silver heat riser tube off of the exhaust manifold to the air cleaner?

 

No it was removed. The thing was it ran better than this when it was 10 degrees below zero the other day. At first I thought it was bad gas since it happened when i got below 1/4 tank. Now I'm starting to think that its the timing. Is there any way the distributor might have jumped a cog or maybe spun out of timing? Its very strange since this started happening more than 6 hours after I tried to get it out of the driveway.

 

Well i cleaned the crap out of the carb and its definitely running better. Still a little rough at idle, though. I'm going to have the timing checked out just in case.

...after i get some good gas - just to rule out all the possibilities.

 

Timing usually doesn't just change acutely. Look for a vacuum leak, say, the vacuum advance, or transmission modulator valve. Or, even just the hoses to either. The modulator line could have got knocked off in the snow/ice. That normally will cause a delayed or hard up-shift.

With the engine running, warmed up, idling(if it will, breather off) either close the choke butterfly by hand or, hold your hand close, almost covering the opening, if the engine speeds up...vacuum leak. Maybe a float sticking, sometimes you can rev the engine up and manually choke it out with your hand and pull the debris through the carb, let it take a breath right before it dies all the way out, it revs up. Be aware of coughing or back fires.

Could also be moisture in the distributor cap.

Add some WD-40 or lubricant to the carb after you cleaned it, if your sporting a Q-jet, it will be much happier.

 

Well, i cleaned and wd-40'd the carb and it actually seems to be running alot better. I put my hand over the carb and it almost stalled, so i guess there's no leaks there. I also filled the tank and took it for an italian tune-up :3gears:. Thanks for the help, I'm going to give it a real tune-up soon.