Help Me Get This Thing Started

[Silverback]

yea, that concerns me also, I've always seen them with a largish air bubble in them, but I'm pretty sure I have a delivery problem if it took maybe 60 or more seconds (total) cranking to see any fuel in it.


I can't get over how hard it was to find one of these things local, _no one_ had a standard, old school mechanical fuel pump in stock, and most (like look up a pump for a 71 mach 1 on autozone's site) list the wrong pump (typically a aertex high pressure in-tank FI pump).

I think I got lucky(knock on wood, I hope I don't jinx myself by saying it) and the manager at the local autozone took an interest in the car and ordered one in even though I didn't get back to him in time last night to get it. I called this morning to see about ordering it and the guy that answered asked "did he give you a price?" "we got one in on the truck this morning that has a note 'hold for the mustang Mach 1/usually the Trans Am guy' on it," so I'm really hoping it's the right one when I go and pick it up tonight.

I keep joking to them that they really need to just start delivering to my house when I have those weekends where I'm in like 6x... they keep telling me that I need to setup a corporate account like when I did fab/install work for a speed shop (yea, I know, but I've still never owned anything with a carb)

 

[Jeff73Mach1]

If that fuel pump doesn't come thru I just changed out a working one for a Holley 80 gph unit. I could wrap and mail what I have to you.

Since you have no prior experience with carbs, you would likely benefit from some basic carb theory. Hopefully someone who is more knowledgeable than me will come along and point out all my errors, but I'll give you a starting point.

Carburetors are controlled vacuum leaks.

They have 4 basic circuits

idle circuit

transition circuit

main circuit

enrichment circuit

The idle circuit is generally controlled by jet size and AIR BLEED size Your idle circuit remains in effect up to well above idle and affects low end performance.

The transition circuit is normally a series of slots and additional air bleeds that add fuel as the idle circuit just begins to get overwhelmed.

The main circuit supplies fuel as the car does the bulk of its business. As air is drawn thru the venturi, it creates a low pressure area that sucks the fuel into the airstream. This fuel comes from the bowls (The floats just shut off fuel flow to the bowls when they are full at which point the pump recirculates until the float opens the valve back up.)

Okay you noticed I used some bold type above-that's because this is important. The enrichment circuit is there to "Squirt" fuel into the engine when the throttle is opened suddenly, otherwise the vacuum drop would allow all the fuel in suspension to drop out of being atomized and puddle in the manifold. The squirt provides enough fuel to allow the engine to not "bog" down.

All of this is applicable to both the primaries and secondaries.

Good luck and welcome to the site

 

[marks73]

And you only wanted to know about how much gas should be pumping BWAHAHAHA! (how's that for a evil laugh Don?)Welcome to 7173 Mustangs.com. We get ya going!

 

[Don65Stang]

And you only wanted to know about how much gas should be pumping BWAHAHAHA! (how's that for a evil laugh Don?)Welcome to 7173 Mustangs.com. We get ya going!

So much for my monopoly on the evil laugh. :dodgy: lol

Good job Jeff with the 4 stages of a carb. All the posts on this thread have good info. The Edlebrock carb should be good once you get a steady flow of fuel to it.

Welcome Silverback!

 

[mustang7173]

Hello Silverback,

I would almost bet the farm that it is your electronic unit, aka, Uni-lite module that is bad. I have lost two of them in past 15 years. Do you have a standard Motorcraft 351c distributor? I have always kept on around just in case my Mallory Uni-lite craps out. Also. if it does not fire with Either, then it is not getting fire to the plugs.

mustang7173

 

[Silverback]

Hello Silverback,

I would almost bet the farm that it is your electronic unit, aka, Uni-lite module that is bad. I have lost two of them in past 15 years. Do you have a standard Motorcraft 351c distributor? I have always kept on around just in case my Mallory Uni-lite craps out. Also. if it does not fire with Either, then it is not getting fire to the plugs.

mustang7173

While I have no great love for the mallory ignition parts, my experience has been with them regularly crapping out also, I did post about a page ago:

Went and grabbed a can of ether and a remote starter switch. 3 seconds of ether would run it for about 20seconds, and run well (I think it has a small header leak from the back, I got a little puff when it started but couldn't hear it running). I tried it 4x, and it ran well each time. And the fuel filter is no more full... I'm thinking I have a dead fuel pump (yea, I know, ether doesn't mean that the carb is right, but I think it should be close).

Unfortunately I haven't had the time to get the new pump installed yet...

 

[mustang7173]

Hello Silver,

Well, that is progress. At least the fuel pump is accessible to replace. Please keep us up to date on your progress.

mustang7173

Hello Silverback,

I would almost bet the farm that it is your electronic unit, aka, Uni-lite module that is bad. I have lost two of them in past 15 years. Do you have a standard Motorcraft 351c distributor? I have always kept on around just in case my Mallory Uni-lite craps out. Also. if it does not fire with Either, then it is not getting fire to the plugs.

mustang7173

While I have no great love for the mallory ignition parts, my experience has been with them regularly crapping out also, I did post about a page ago:

Went and grabbed a can of ether and a remote starter switch. 3 seconds of ether would run it for about 20seconds, and run well (I think it has a small header leak from the back, I got a little puff when it started but couldn't hear it running). I tried it 4x, and it ran well each time. And the fuel filter is no more full... I'm thinking I have a dead fuel pump (yea, I know, ether doesn't mean that the carb is right, but I think it should be close).

Unfortunately I haven't had the time to get the new pump installed yet...

 

[Silverback]

Ok, so the belts sound awful, but hey, what do you want, they haven't moved for like 10 years...





I shut it off so fast because I just found out the hard way that the exhaust was zip tied and bungee corded to the hangers, and the big cloud of smoke from them burning through freaked me out...


The new fuel pump acts totally differently then the old, I could see a "glug glug" and then the filter was full while cranking. also I was going to check for a restriction in the line, but when I loosened the clamp on the old pump and got it running all over the place I was pretty sure I didn't have one.

So now how do I get a real idle out of this thing. It seems to want to idle around 2500-3000, and if I turn the screw back it dies/won't start. A 1/4 turn back from where it is and it will start with a small squirt of ether, but I can't keep it running without goosing the throttle. I also don't see any fuel coming out of the squirters above the primaries.

What do I check next to get this thing setup right? I'm starting to wonder if I need to take it apart again and clean out the little passages better, but I'm not sure with what. The gunk that I cleaned out of the bowls didn't come out with carb cleaner, I eneded up having to wipe it out with a rag with acetone and scrape it out. I'm almost wondering if I might not be better off getting a new carb just because I'm not sure that I would recognize if everything is right on this one.

 

[Justin71]

well, seems to me like time for the vacuum gage. I'd suspect you have some vac leaks after all this time,and without proper vacuum you can get a good idle. I just went through an engine tuneup series (see "after-firing when off-throttle" thread). hook up the basic vac gauge to the main manifold behind the carb (top of engine). and see what you are getting. At idle, you should be seeing 16-18 inches-of-mercury steady vacuum at idle. Vac gauges are cheap, easy to use, and can tell you a lot. See this article: http://expertscolumn.com/content/how-use-vacuum-gauge

I can't verify everything that article says is true, but it might give you some clues.

You might just want to replace all the vac lines running around the top of the engine. you can get replacement stuff for like $10, and not have to worry about old rubber lines leaking. The other place I found leaks on my engine was between the carb, and the intake manifold. There is a gasket between the carb, and the engine offset (or spacer - alum piece about 1 in thick on my car). and another gasket between the intake and the that spacer. make sure you clean all the surfaces there, and put new gaskets in to insure no leaks in that area.

The other thing to check is timing. If it won't idle, the timing could be off or vac leaks so bad that it can't run. loosen the hold down bolt on the dist, just enough so it will rotate. unplug one or both vac lines from the vacuum advance module on the side of the dist, and plug them. Get someone to crank it for you, and try to find a good timing setting by watching the vac gauge. probably your best timing is where you get max vacuum reading.

Another thing you can try is to run some chemical cleaners thru the carb, like "Seafoam carb cleaner" or "berrymans chem tool". these could remove small things in spaces you couldn't clean easily. might help loosen up some old stuck parts etc in there.

See if any of that helps. sounds like you are getting really close to resurrecting this beast. Good luck & Keep at it!

Jay

 

[Utard]

Hey Silverback.

If it were me I would pull the carb and clean that sucker out.

It really is a very easy carb to understand., rebuild and tune.

Here's the manual that will tell you everything you need to know:

http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive_new/misc/tech_center/install/1000/1405_manual.pdf

I rebuilt mine a couple of months ago.

It took me a few hours, a screwdriver with different tips (torx) and 2 cans of carb cleaner.

If you are meticulous and careful, you can completely disassemble, clean, reassemble and tune it in an afternoon.

Go get a rebuild kit. They are cheap and give you all new gaskets, as well as a couple of parts that are easier to replace than to clean.

I would also recommend getting the tune kit (part# 1487) so you can properly tune it up.

It is a kit of jets, metering rods and step up springs that allow you to get it to run how you want it.

Read the manual. It's easy to follow and makes the carburetor easy to understand.

Once you get to know the Carter / Edlebrock and see how easy it is to work on, you'll become a fan.

Now let's back up a second......

Having that fire extinguisher is a good idea as a last resort, but the hose is a very bad idea.

Spraying water on a gas fire will only make it spread.

A fire extinguisher will put out the fire by smothering it with chemicals, but now you've got a terrible mess to clean up.

You need to get all the crap that you just sprayed into the carb and intake cleaned up and removed.

The best way to deal with a fire would be a large towel.

A fire needs 2 things to burn..... fuel and air.

If you throw a towel over the fire, you've taken all the air out of the equation and the fire will go out.

Now you don't have a giant mess to clean.

If it spreads too quickly or the towel just doesn't do it, then you have the extinguisher just in case.

If you did it right and threw the towel over the carb before you grabbed the extinguisher, then the cleanup is a whole lot easier as well.

Don't forget to check the cap and rotor.

Good luck!

Scott

 

[Silverback]

I bought a rebuild kit yesterday, and I went to pull the carb this morning and as soon as I touched the throttle linkage I heard the squirters go. I took a look and everything that I thought wasn’t working looked like it was now. I decided to try to prime it (pumped the throttle 3x) and turned the key and IT STARTED (first time it started without ether)… huh. I did give the 5 gallons of gas that I put in the tank a healthy dose of chevron fuel system cleaner (one of the few that I think really work) and some Stabil, I’m wondering if they are enough that they’re cleaning out anything that was left plugging up the carb.

Still idling funny. Had the vacuum line idea myself, I pulled the PVC hanging off the front (doesn’t have a hole in the valve cover to go in anyway, it was just hanging on the front of the engine), and pulled the vacuum line from the back of the manifold to the vacuum distribution block (that one was cracked and nasty). Plugged them both. Running at exactly the same rpm… and not well, and big cloud of smoke…

Huh, I left the idle screws were they were just because I felt “well, it was supposedly running when it was parked, they should be close, right?” WRONG. I turned them in and found the driver’s side one was 5.5 turns out, the passenger side was 6.5 turns out… that sounds like way too much, every carb I’ve ever heard of is supposed to be set somewhere around 2 turns to start, so I tried that… turned the key… started right up. Hey, much, MUCH less smoke and running better. Started turning the idle stop screw out and got it down to about 1500rpm before I had to goose it every once in a while to keep it running. Getting closer.

Tightened the belts to get rid of the belt squeal (found that the bolt that holds the alt aduster to the water pump is either broken or stripped… didn’t feel like pulling the water pump pulley to find out which right now), but got things tight enough to stop the belts from squealing so I should be able to hear what this thing is doing now. Rerouted the existing vacuum lines (don’t know why they had them going around in circles, ran a new line to the distribution block and ran the existing lines (most are missing) to the closest ports and blocked the rest off.

Need to find a Tach and Vacuum gauge.

I need to figure out something to hold the mufflers up and some sort of turn downs (looks like someone just cut off the tailpipes right after the mufflers/before the axle at some point) so I can move it around and hopefully quiet it down a little.


Fire extinguisher- yea, I’ve discharged 2 recently, had my gas drier catch fire 2 days after bringing my twins home a 4 months ago…

Hose- yea I know, I figured that I would throw a towel or my shirt on it first to try to smother it and if it’s close I’d wet that down with the hose. I didn’t want to spend another day cleaning up dry chemical unless nothing else worked.


Anyone know anything about this Mallory 9000 series distributor:



It doesn't appear to have any sort of advance mechanism (I'm wondering if it's under that cover), definitely no vacuum advance. I hate when people do these things to cars... not sure why this would make any sense in anything but a dedicated race car. Any idea what to set this thing to? I'm wondering if this is part of my idle problem.

I'm very tempted to just not even try to figure out what the hacked up ignition wiring is, and just get a distributor and ignition box and replace the whole setup. I saw a really cheap ($38) HEI coil in cap setup w vacuum advance for a Cleveland on ebay the other day... seems like that would make things much easier (especially since I already have a ton of GM parts sitting around, I'm sure I have at least 1 large cap HEI setups as well as a plug in harness to plug in at least one of the ignition boxes I have sitting in the garage).

 

[Justin71]

I may be giving away my "okie" roots here, but get ya some bailin' wire to hold up that exhaust. Just steel wire. Get the thing and held into position, and then wrap bailing wire around it nice and tight, and twist it up with pliers to hold it in position for temporary. Works pretty darn well as a temp fix. Nothing you want to live with long term.

 

[kcmash]

Again, can someone confirm how fast this thing should be pumping gas? Is it like a fuel injected car which I can pull the fuel line and it will pump a couple of gallons in a min or so? Like I'm expecting that cranking for 10 seconds I should fill a cup easily, I'm not getting nearly that flow. It took 5-10 maybe 10 or more second cranking "sessions" to even see fuel in the fuel filter.

mechanical fuel pumps run 4 to 10 pounds of pressure on average. not like EFI which exceeds 35

I just got my brother's started after sitting for 6 years. As stated above, pour gas in the carb, see if it fires. I suggest cleaning the points with a little emery cloth before pouring the gas. That was the trick to getting my brothers running. 30 seconds with emery cloth made for a great feeling when the 351 fired up.

 

[mustang7173]

Hey Silverback,

That Mallory is one nice distributor. The distributor you have has a mechanical advance mechanism inside. The faster your RPM's the more advance you get. One can change the advance by changing the weights inside. But, that would require a recalibration. I have the standard Mallory Unilite distributor with the Mallory Spark box. She runs really nice. Also, the vacuum advance is really good for cold starting of the engine and accelerations. Once the engine is warmed to operating temperature, the vacuum advance is ported to the vacuum port of the carburetor. I have often wonder which is the better setup. I suspect, if you do not have much vacuum, then the mechanical advance would be better.

mustang7173

I bought a rebuild kit yesterday, and I went to pull the carb this morning and as soon as I touched the throttle linkage I heard the squirters go. I took a look and everything that I thought wasn’t working looked like it was now. I decided to try to prime it (pumped the throttle 3x) and turned the key and IT STARTED (first time it started without ether)… huh. I did give the 5 gallons of gas that I put in the tank a healthy dose of chevron fuel system cleaner (one of the few that I think really work) and some Stabil, I’m wondering if they are enough that they’re cleaning out anything that was left plugging up the carb.

Still idling funny. Had the vacuum line idea myself, I pulled the PVC hanging off the front (doesn’t have a hole in the valve cover to go in anyway, it was just hanging on the front of the engine), and pulled the vacuum line from the back of the manifold to the vacuum distribution block (that one was cracked and nasty). Plugged them both. Running at exactly the same rpm… and not well, and big cloud of smoke…

Huh, I left the idle screws were they were just because I felt “well, it was supposedly running when it was parked, they should be close, right?” WRONG. I turned them in and found the driver’s side one was 5.5 turns out, the passenger side was 6.5 turns out… that sounds like way too much, every carb I’ve ever heard of is supposed to be set somewhere around 2 turns to start, so I tried that… turned the key… started right up. Hey, much, MUCH less smoke and running better. Started turning the idle stop screw out and got it down to about 1500rpm before I had to goose it every once in a while to keep it running. Getting closer.

Tightened the belts to get rid of the belt squeal (found that the bolt that holds the alt aduster to the water pump is either broken or stripped… didn’t feel like pulling the water pump pulley to find out which right now), but got things tight enough to stop the belts from squealing so I should be able to hear what this thing is doing now. Rerouted the existing vacuum lines (don’t know why they had them going around in circles, ran a new line to the distribution block and ran the existing lines (most are missing) to the closest ports and blocked the rest off.

Need to find a Tach and Vacuum gauge.

I need to figure out something to hold the mufflers up and some sort of turn downs (looks like someone just cut off the tailpipes right after the mufflers/before the axle at some point) so I can move it around and hopefully quiet it down a little.


Fire extinguisher- yea, I’ve discharged 2 recently, had my gas drier catch fire 2 days after bringing my twins home a 4 months ago…

Hose- yea I know, I figured that I would throw a towel or my shirt on it first to try to smother it and if it’s close I’d wet that down with the hose. I didn’t want to spend another day cleaning up dry chemical unless nothing else worked.


Anyone know anything about this Mallory 9000 series distributor:

It doesn't appear to have any sort of advance mechanism (I'm wondering if it's under that cover), definitely no vacuum advance. I hate when people do these things to cars... not sure why this would make any sense in anything but a dedicated race car. Any idea what to set this thing to? I'm wondering if this is part of my idle problem.

I'm very tempted to just not even try to figure out what the hacked up ignition wiring is, and just get a distributor and ignition box and replace the whole setup. I saw a really cheap ($38) HEI coil in cap setup w vacuum advance for a Cleveland on ebay the other day... seems like that would make things much easier (especially since I already have a ton of GM parts sitting around, I'm sure I have at least 1 large cap HEI setups as well as a plug in harness to plug in at least one of the ignition boxes I have sitting in the garage).