Now my car is running like a barge

[craigvk]

Yep, I am a victim. My car for the past few days has been running like a complete barge. There is heaps of flat spots and has stalled once. It's undriveable at the moment.

I just chucked 30 litres of Vortex in at the servo. It had about 10 litres in it, so it probably has around 40 odd litres in the tank.

When I drive, there is heaps of flat spots like major cylinder miss. The spark plug and leads are fine. Doesn't need to be timed as it's fine. I am not sure whether it's a vacuum leak or my carb pump is stuffed or what. It does the same thing on gas. Maybe it's got a leak.

Any suggestions?

 

[atrail308]

does it idle alright?

 

[craigvk]

When in park, it idles good. Pressing the pedal and revving it when in park sounds beautiful. As soon as I put it in drive and drive off with load on the motor, it runs terrible.

I am beginning to think it isn't a vacuum leak because it would show up when in park and probably a lot worse.

 

[J_D]

It has to be an ignition issue if it does it on both fuels. If it was a vac leak it shouldnt idle properly.

 

[craigvk]

The gas is unfortuneately a seperate issue. The gas played up and crapped it 2 weeks ago. The problem was the converter likely being glogged.
Then the car was put on petrol and has been running nice for 2 weeks until today the above crap has happened, so the two are seperate problems. I can fix the converter, but the petrol problem has got me stumped.

 

[atrail308]

if its vac, it would work on petrol and gas, so that wont narrow it down from a fuel issue or igntion issue, but to me it sounds like you'r carby is playing up, if you quickly stab it in park, will it hesitate???
have a quick look through this rochy diagnostic i found when i was having trouble with mine, it might help you out a bit...

http://www.florida4x4.com/tech/quadrajet/qjtshoot.pdf

 

[craigvk]

When chucked in park, it is ok. The barge is fine when not moving. I have booked into the mechanic in the morning. Hopefully it's a simple crap problem that can be fixed without major time involved. If I had 250 bucks, I'd go and get a reco one. But I'm broke.

Thanks for that carb link. It is very good, but as it says, there could be a million things wrong with my carb whether it be a bad float or needles or anything.

 

[craigvk]

I am having a gut feeling now.

For some reason I am thinking it's an ignition problem more than a carb problem. When I took the filter housing off, I pumped the throttle lever and saw that the fuel was spraying out of the jets fine.

It brings back about the supposed ignition module problem I thought I might have had. Basically 2 weeks ago I put it on petrol after I thought my gas converter was dirty. Now the same thing has happened but this time petrol. I am wondering whether it might be spark related because when I saw the jets spraying out fuel well, it seems to be more ignition likely.

Hopefully the mechs can find the problem and I can get a replacement part and fix it. It could be a distributor/module problem or the coil packing up. At the moment it sucks because I have got very little spare parts sitting around as I have only had my car for 11 months. A spare dissy would be handy and a coil. Time will tell I guess.

 

[craigvk]

Got my car back. They think the carb is being starved of fuel. I will need to get my cousin to pull the carb off and have a look. The fuel part of the carb where it manages it must be at fault. I have a couple of spare carbs for parts. Just need to get another gas converter so I can at least run it on gas which is coming in a couple of days.

 

[phat_com]

poor vk! i hope it works out for you bro.