Hey guys,
First time back in a while, finally getting nice here in New England. I bought my 67 GTX at a small classic car dealer a couple hours away. It looks great and is very stock original, auto trans, as far as I know matching numbers, I can certainly tell he engine is at least date code correct. (HP C 440 stamp on top front) Anyways, the day I bought it, I was on the highway home, stopped for gas and it was stalling at idle in Drive, as in slowly driving up to a gas pump, it stalls. By this point, the car was hot (not overheating, good temp but very much warmed up) When restarting, it cranks for a while before it starts, and then you have to keep the rpms up to keep it going. I didn't think it was an issue because I have a trusted mechanic at home and figured I'd have him look at it, adjust and I'd be all set. I took it to him, he adjusted the carb (original Carter AFB) and sent me on my way. Again, once it got hot, stalling like crazy at slow parking lot trolling speeds. I took it back to the mechanic, he said the carb is really bad and that he noticed an electrical line labeled "choke", which tells him the guy that traded it in took off a newer electric choke carb and put this old one back on before trading it.... Its been rebuilt and should be replaced with an Edelbrock to make life much better. I'm fine with that, so I bought an Eddy 850 and he installed it. It ran MUCH better (and faster!) cold, but still, once it gets hot, it stalls like a mofo at slow speeds. It was the end of the season, so I waited til after the winter and took it back to him this week. He verbally told me it sounded like from what I was describing that it might be running lean. Okay, he kept it for a day, checked the plugs and claims they were "perfectly tan" so he was not convinced it was lean. He ran some tests on meters and told me he saw no valve or compression issues evident, it "runs strong". He actually changed the springs in the carb to lean it out more because he thought maybe the vaccuum was low and the springs were too hard for the carb to open. He also adjusted the timing. I took it home, ran great while cool, but again, stalling when hot after about 30 mins of driving.
I've had my mechanic for several years. He's a guy in his 50s with classic cars of his own and always cool to go to his shop cuz he always has many classic muscle cars he's fixing for people. He's a great mechanic. I truly believe that and he rebuilt my 67 Mustang and made it sing and dance. I know he knows his stuff. If anything, he tries like hell to fix things the easiest way before digging real deep and diagnosing as a more major problem. In other words, he doesn't like to do major surgery before fixing it the most easy way first. I am geting the feeling that there may be something more of an issue here. When I bought the car, it was described as just having an engine rebuild with a new slightly hotter purple cam but SUPPOSEDLY still standard bore.
What COULD be the issue here? Could I be looking at something major in this engine, and if so, what are some things that it could possibly be. Or is this common trial and error adjusting timing and the carb jets etc. It just awfully weird that even a new carb had no impact on this issue and it still stalls exactly like the day I bought the car with an original, banged up old carb.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the long winded post on something so lame...
First time back in a while, finally getting nice here in New England. I bought my 67 GTX at a small classic car dealer a couple hours away. It looks great and is very stock original, auto trans, as far as I know matching numbers, I can certainly tell he engine is at least date code correct. (HP C 440 stamp on top front) Anyways, the day I bought it, I was on the highway home, stopped for gas and it was stalling at idle in Drive, as in slowly driving up to a gas pump, it stalls. By this point, the car was hot (not overheating, good temp but very much warmed up) When restarting, it cranks for a while before it starts, and then you have to keep the rpms up to keep it going. I didn't think it was an issue because I have a trusted mechanic at home and figured I'd have him look at it, adjust and I'd be all set. I took it to him, he adjusted the carb (original Carter AFB) and sent me on my way. Again, once it got hot, stalling like crazy at slow parking lot trolling speeds. I took it back to the mechanic, he said the carb is really bad and that he noticed an electrical line labeled "choke", which tells him the guy that traded it in took off a newer electric choke carb and put this old one back on before trading it.... Its been rebuilt and should be replaced with an Edelbrock to make life much better. I'm fine with that, so I bought an Eddy 850 and he installed it. It ran MUCH better (and faster!) cold, but still, once it gets hot, it stalls like a mofo at slow speeds. It was the end of the season, so I waited til after the winter and took it back to him this week. He verbally told me it sounded like from what I was describing that it might be running lean. Okay, he kept it for a day, checked the plugs and claims they were "perfectly tan" so he was not convinced it was lean. He ran some tests on meters and told me he saw no valve or compression issues evident, it "runs strong". He actually changed the springs in the carb to lean it out more because he thought maybe the vaccuum was low and the springs were too hard for the carb to open. He also adjusted the timing. I took it home, ran great while cool, but again, stalling when hot after about 30 mins of driving.
I've had my mechanic for several years. He's a guy in his 50s with classic cars of his own and always cool to go to his shop cuz he always has many classic muscle cars he's fixing for people. He's a great mechanic. I truly believe that and he rebuilt my 67 Mustang and made it sing and dance. I know he knows his stuff. If anything, he tries like hell to fix things the easiest way before digging real deep and diagnosing as a more major problem. In other words, he doesn't like to do major surgery before fixing it the most easy way first. I am geting the feeling that there may be something more of an issue here. When I bought the car, it was described as just having an engine rebuild with a new slightly hotter purple cam but SUPPOSEDLY still standard bore.
What COULD be the issue here? Could I be looking at something major in this engine, and if so, what are some things that it could possibly be. Or is this common trial and error adjusting timing and the carb jets etc. It just awfully weird that even a new carb had no impact on this issue and it still stalls exactly like the day I bought the car with an original, banged up old carb.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the long winded post on something so lame...
