This might help someone in the future. Its probably too late to advise me as
the problem seems to be fixed, but feel free to share ideas. Xmas day i
started out on a 1 hour drive to the airport to pick up a friend. 10pm and 20
miles on at70 mph my 74B loses almost all power. Pumping gas pedal helped
slightly but car continued to slow then dies. The car starts, furious pumping
gets the engine to rev, but car starts to move then loses power over and
over. I nurse it along to an exit with a gas station. I see nothing out of
place, realize i have no tools anyway, then notice the engine bay fuel filter
is only half full. I start engine and filter is only quarter full, but engine
seems to run ok. So off i go to seatac airport. I keep it down to 65 mph to
keep up with slowest traffic even though fog is getting thick.
i get to airport on time, no more car trouble, find out plane can't land and
is diverted to small town to refuel. I wait till 3am then hear from friend to
go home, plane will try again in morning so off i go, no prob. till 3 exits
before the Tacoma narrows bridge, not a good place to break down, same
story, nurse it along to last exit before bridge, get on side road, ignition
off for a few min., try again, off i go. I got over the bridge, but had to
repeat process a few times to get home. So i got my friend from the airport in
the morning with the 66BGT ,but back to the fuel problem. I have heard of the
in the tank fuel screen problems and also suspected the pump. I took the fuel
line off the pump and turned on the pump to drain the tank into a can. The gas
stream would flow, slow, then trickle. I put the shop-vac hose into the tank
filler spout, formed a seal with my hand and buckled the tank bottom a few
times, then tried the pump again with same results, i did this over and over
till i got about 7 gallons out. [save your key pad, i know and respect the
explosive properties of gasoline, dont do this on my advise] I then took off
the pump and hooked up a battery and pumped gas from one can to another, it
worked ok. I pumped from one can to the same can for 5 to 10 min. Still no
prob. So i took off the gas tank, drained the rest off the gas and found no
loose rust or foreign objects. The outlet fitting is brazed on so i took the
sending unit out to look in. The fuel line goes through a slosh baffle and
down out of sight. It took a small mirror on a stick to see the end of the
line and screen. No debris, just a white cylinder shaped screen. I got the
air compressor out and blew through the line. It whistled right through. I
gave up looking and put it all back together. Went to Napa and got a new
Facet pump, 4.5 max pressure, just like the one that came off. The old one
had been on there since before i found the car as a rust bucket about 6 yrs
ago it sat through a 3 yr restoration and has been driven since. I now have
put a small metal filter between the tank and the pump and a glass filter
before the carbs. There was a small amount of clear or milky particles in one
of the gas cans i used, i cleaned them out to check, I dont know if they were
in there before i started this or not, also the fitting nut on the tank outlet
pipe was not very tight, not loose, but not real tight. The car runs fine now.
The problem seems to be solved, but i dont know what the problem was. Well,
sorry that took so long, i really did try to make it short.
Marc Derenzy, Bremerton, WA
66BGT
74B
53 Magnette
Lots of project and parts cars
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