Cure for vapor lock

packyusmc

packyusmc

Member
ive had vapor lock problems ever since I bought my '38 Standard. Rebuilt radiator with modern core, bigger electric fan with shroud. New improved thermostats ect. ect. Car has pertronix, coil type unknown. I bought a new coil from pertronix and guess what? I drove the car about 100 miles today in 90 degree temps both on interstate and city streets with no sign of vapor lock. So I think and hope my problem is solved.
 
new coil solved the problem, so my guess is you never had vapor lock (fuel problem), it was an electrical problem, the coil
 
One of my old ford buddies once said, " 95% of all fuel problems are Ignition, and 95% of all ignition problems are fuel" Rich
 
This new restoration is suffering with Vapour lock .I suspect electrical it has a petronx system .I am doing some research on the subject ,will post my finding later or in maybe a book,Ted
 

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maybe im being over simplistic about vapor lock problem, easy way to find out if its electrical or a fuel problem, as soon as the car quits running, pull a spark plug wire and see if you have spark at the plug,if not remove dist cap and see if the rotor is turning, any way no spark at plug means you don't have a fuel problem, if spark at plugs have some one, or you work the fuel linkage and look for fuel squirting down the carb, if no squirt, you have a fuel problem, either way you have found the problem, I all ways pull a spark plug wire because its the easiest way to check a problem
 
I believe that I had covered all the things that should have fixed the vapor lock. So I didn't think I had vapor lock. On the other hand the coil in the car was unknown and it was chrome. I have pertronix so I got a new pertronix coil to fit. Now there is no symptoms of vapor lock or anything else. The car runs as well as it did before but after heating up it doesn't quit like it did before. So in my humble opinion I had a bad coil. So now I feel comfortable driving the car without being stranded on the side of I-40.
 
if you mean it keeps running after you turn key off, possible causes, idling to high, timing to fast, carb running just a little rich, engine a little hotter than normal causing dieseling, poor or a low grade of fuel, spark plugs to hot and so on and on. and I would get rid of the pertronix and go back to the tried and true ford original distributor
 
No, it wasn't doing any of that. I have 180 degree thermostats. When the temp got up to 180 degrees and the engine was fully warmed up it would act like it was running out of gas, would die and wouldn't restart till the engine was cool again. With the new coil I drove it on the interstate and it didn't die. I also drove it on city streets and when I found myself in a construction zone the water temp went over 200 degrees it still ran good and didn't even act like it wasn't going to run. When I got back out on the highway it cooled down quickly and ran fine. The mechanical temp guage I have is a sun and I have no reason to believe it is defective.
 
You didn't have vapour lock, you had a bad coil.

You didn't find a cure for vapour lock, as your post appeared to claim with the title "cure for vapour lock"
Your symptoms were similar to vapour lock, I'll give you that. The fact the coil fixed it proves it wasn't vapour lock.
Martin.
 
If the Pertronix coil is six volts, you need to know if the resistor on the firewall should be used or bypassed. Otherwise you run the risk of damage to the coil and rapid deterioration of the points if they haven't been replaced in the conversion.
 
supereal said:
If the Pertronix coil is six volts, you need to know if the resistor on the firewall should be used or bypassed. Otherwise you run the risk of damage to the coil and rapid deterioration of the points if they haven't been replaced in the conversion.
Click to expand...

Excellent point for I strongly suspect his Pertronix has an internal resistor like most of the modern coils.
 
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