40 Ford sputters and quits

coolcoupe said:
What cound be wrong with the point plate?
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The point plate has the points mounted to it and completes the ground side of the coil. The spring on the coil has to contact the plate to make the circuit. It's just a thought that and open circuit could occur here and cause a flame-out. Even the carbon contact could cause a problem, though a live high-voltage spark will probably still jump a gap there.
Milt K
 
Check the pickup tube in the tank,my dads 51 would do the same and I found out the pick up tube did not get cleaned out when the tank was cleaned and repaired. Also check the flexible fuel hose that attaches the pump to the line as they can collapse internally and cause problems.
 
Mr.34 said:
Car is 100% stock and yes, 6 volt. I will do all the suggestuions and appreciate everyones input.

When I look in carb it always has fluid and starts immediatly but then almost seems to flood and kill. If I wait 10 minutes she runs again. I have the jumper ready and will start car tomorrow and check voltage across coil and take votage metter with on nest spin in the neighborhood. I do not leave 6 volt electic fuel pump run all the time. Needless to say, I do not go far as stopping a big Yukon truck with 40 brakes is not the best situation.

Gary
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GARY my gut feeling is fuel. when it stalls i would pull the bowl cover and visually ck the fuel level, pull the n&s ck for restriction have cured several lol. scotty
 
Tom's idea of spraying some starter fluid in the carb to see if it tries to start would be my very first test. Lanny's gas cap vent idea is also a really good idea. When it quits, remove the gas cap and see if there is a vacuum on the cap, If there is, the vent is plugged.

Here is a story about a neighbor's Dodge Van that took me a couple days to figure out. He would drive the van about an hour and then it would start running out of gas and then die. If it sat for awhile it would start up again, I could consistently duplicate the problem. I had checked everything I could and the only thing left was the fuel tank. The van had a 40 gallon tank that was full and I really did not want to pull it out on just a hunch. Before I pulled the tank, I stuck a five gallon gas can in the passenger seat with a hose going to the mechanical fuel pump and we went for a ride, no more dieing (don't forget to plug the old hose). They had gone on a camping trip to some sand dunes and sometime while they were there his youngest son put a bunch of sand down the gas tank filler neck. There was a filter sock on the end of the pickup tube, If you drove it for awhile, enough sand would accumulate on the filter and plug it. When the engine died, without the vacuum from the pump holding the sand to the filter it would fall back to the bottom of the tank. After about a 1/2 hour it would start up again. I found almost a shovel load of sand in the tank. I'm pretty sure you don't have a shovel load of sand in your tank but you might have some rust floating around in there. I found a red shop rag in a tank once. You could try the gas can trick to eliminate the fuel tank as the problem. Just be really careful.

Jerry
 
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UPDATE: Fortunately I have two of the top flathead experts right here locally. Both have it narowed down to either the fact that I always have had a full tank of gas and the problem started when I removed locking gas cap (Drake) which allows some air into tank, and put a new SS stock looking style on that is so tight there is no way air can get in to relieve vaccum/pressure in tank. DOES NYONE KNOW WHERE YOU CAN BUY A VENTILATED 40 FORD GAS CAP?

I just put in a new genuine style ballast resisitor (again) but this one is not cheapo ones availble in all the catalogs. I also have a wire jumping the resisitor with toggle switch so when we have the next test run (when wether clears), I will temporarily flip toggle and run full 6 volts to distributor for a few inutes. The rebuilder of the stock distributors said it will take quite a while before any damage will occur to the points using 6 volts. If car keeps running, we can rest assured that it is the resistor. The very full tank of gas I have is the result of putting another sender in the tank a few weeks ago so I could calibrate. Warning, if you buy sender from Drae or anyone, ask for solid modern float made from fuel resistant plastic and not leaky brass floats soldered together. My last float was filed with gas after one summer.

I will let you asll know if we come to any conclusion, but we are narrowing it down.

Thanks for all the interest.

Gary
 
About 5 or 6 years ago, I brought my old gascap down to NAPA, because the gasket was shot and it leaked. They matched up a new cap, that was vented and fit good.
 
Dear Mr 34, I have read over the post regarding you 40 stalling out. Since you did not indicate the climate or daytime temps that you had this problem I am assuming that this is happening after you run the car for an extended period of time or the air temperature is on the higher side of 80*. My supposition is that you are refueling at a gas station that has 10% ethanol fuels. If this is true I will attribute your problem to vaporization of the fuel in the fuel line. In other words there is a point close to the exhaust or the exhaust manifolds where the fuel line is in close proximity to a heat source. As the engine runs the radiant heat builds up in the steel line to a point where the lower boiling point fuels start to bubble. This bubbling of the fuel prevents the liquid fuel from being pumped to the fuel pump and eventually the carb runs out of fuel and the engine quits. The point where you say the car will refire but then quickly quit indicates that there is enough fuel in the accelerator pump circuit for 1 or 2 squirts to get the engine running but not enough fuel in the fuel bowl to keep it running. The previous post suggestions of trying to refire the engine immediately with starting fluid is correct approach to diagnose a fuel issue. If it runs on starting fluid its not an electrical issue. This will even happen with an electrical pump as it become air bound when adjusted to a low pressure setting. As soon as the engine or the line has cooled down and the vapor returned to a liquid you are good to go again usually, about 15 minutes. How do I know, just like everyone else that learned the hardway.
 
Your problem sounds very typical of a bad condenser. Gets hot in 15 to 30 min and develops leakage and kills the spark. in 10 minutes or so it cools off and goes again. I know you changed them but I had one go bad on the car. Ordered 2 new ones from Macs and one was bad. Got a new one from NAPA and it was bad. They gave me a new one and it was OK. In order to prove it was the condenser I mounted the cond. on the ground bolt and swung it aside. Put a small alligator clip on a short wire and connected it from the cond. terminal to the coil terminal so that I could disconnect it in a hurry before it cooled off. Using a good 20000 ohm per volt ohmmeter on the highest Rx10000 scale I measured cond. resistance when it should be absolutely zero. As it cooled the resistance went away and the engine started again.
Someone said to short out the terminals on the back of the ignition switch to to prove the switch OK. As kids we used to use a quarter or half dollar to do this on the used car lots in order to run the engines when the salesman was not around.
Peteva.
 
Mr.34 said:
UPDATE: Fortunately I have two of the top flathead experts right here locally. Both have it narowed down to either the fact that I always have had a full tank of gas and the problem started when I removed locking gas cap (Drake) which allows some air into tank, and put a new SS stock looking style on that is so tight there is no way air can get in to relieve vaccum/pressure in tank. DOES NYONE KNOW WHERE YOU CAN BUY A VENTILATED 40 FORD GAS CAP?

I just put in a new genuine style ballast resisitor (again) but this one is not cheapo ones availble in all the catalogs. I also have a wire jumping the resisitor with toggle switch so when we have the next test run (when wether clears), I will temporarily flip toggle and run full 6 volts to distributor for a few inutes. The rebuilder of the stock distributors said it will take quite a while before any damage will occur to the points using 6 volts. If car keeps running, we can rest assured that it is the resistor. The very full tank of gas I have is the result of putting another sender in the tank a few weeks ago so I could calibrate. Warning, if you buy sender from Drae or anyone, ask for solid modern float made from fuel resistant plastic and not leaky brass floats soldered together. My last float was filed with gas after one summer.

I will let you asll know if we come to any conclusion, but we are narrowing it down.

Thanks for all the interest.

Gary
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Sounds like the gas cap is the problem. Probably not a perfect seal so slowly let air in so that you could start again after waiting.
 
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