what order to get my car running correctly?, tune up galore!! Options

[JOE M]

Here is the story.
I just got new carbs for my car.I installed them but can not seem to get it going right. It runs rough and backfires alot. I know I need to check the plugs because they are old. Things that I am not sure of are the timing which I know is off and also the valves. I never adjusted them. I think the points are ok but im not sure. So my question is what order should I do things. Do I need to make sure the valves are correct before I adjust the carbs. Also do I need the timing correct prior to adjusting the valves. I am so lost here. Any help would be great. I was going to drive it to Richs house but I will not make it.

[jcd914]

The order I would go in:
1 Valve adjustment, needs to be correct before you spend time on the carbs
2 Spark plugs, if you doubt them replace them. I prefer to leave them in place until I have adjusted the valves just to prevent the off chance of a piece of carbon knocked loose doing the plugs getting between a valve & valve seat and affecting the valve clearance. Check the condition of the plug wires and connectors before you hook them back up.
3 Timing, needs to be correct before carbs, has no impact on valve adjustment. I would replace the points because they are cheap and they wear. If you don't know how old the condenser is, you might want to replace it as well. They last a long time but can cause running problems when they fail. Points and condenser need to be done before the timing is set. Make sure to lube the cam for the points and adjust the point gap correctly.
All of these affect how the engine runs and will affect the adjustment of the carbs. Timing maybe tough to set if your carbs are way off so you may have to adjust the carbs some and then set the timing and go back to the carbs.

Might be a good time to change the oil as well.

I never get anything done because there are always too many "While I am in there"s that come up.

Good Luck

Jim

[r_towle]

Here is the order.

Get up.
Go to Northern Foreign Autoparts (They close early on sat)
Buy points, cap, wires, plugs.
Go home.
Drive that POS over here.
I will make it purr tomorrow only...

Rich

[JOE M]

Here is the order.

Get up.
Go to Northern Foreign Autoparts (They close early on sat)
Buy points, cap, wires, plugs.
Go home.
Drive that POS over here.
I will make it purr tomorrow only...

Rich

Rich thats the problem-I dont think it will make it to your house.LOL POS c`mon man give me some encouragement.Actually its starting to look ugly sitting in my driveway. I will get some points today and plugs. I bought the cap and wires last year so I will hold off on that for now.

[r_towle]

did you plug all the vacuum ports?

Rich

[JOE M]

did you plug all the vacuum ports?

Rich

Yeah they are all pluged but I think the valves are way off.Thats why I posted this topic before I buged you. I did not want to bring it over if it needed much more than just the carbs to be adjusted. I think that there are several things going on here. My guess is that the valves are way off and so is the timing.

[r_towle]

well,
Set the valves first....
Do you know how to do that?

Rich

[JOE M]

well,
Set the valves first....
Do you know how to do that?

Rich

Nope but I did print the pelican article. I will go by that or by my hanes book. I think I should be able to get it set correctly. I just got back from Northern. I bought a cap,rotor,points and plugs. Like I said the wires are 1 year old.I will stay with them for now. The only cap they had was 1 with out the rev limiter. The 1 I have in now has the limiter. I did not really do anything last week because my wifes uncle passed away.

[JOE M]

I checked the gap on my valves and they were way off. I used the pelican procedure to check and set. It basiccaly says to start with #1 and set both the intake and exhaust valve gap to .006". It than says to rotate the 90 deg to cylinder 2 using the rotor as a ref. Continue to 3 and 4. So I found that the exhaust valve on a couple cyliners had no gap and also a couple of intake valves were way off. I set them and started the engine and it seemed to run pretty good but I could hear the lifters pretty loud.Is this normal?I know they are mechanical but how loud should they be? Next I gave each carb a little gas and they seemed to respond pretty good. I did find that cylinders 3 and 4 do not seem to really be firing. They are getting spark but when I pull the spark plug wires there is no change in how the car runs (idles). Does this mean that I am flooding the cylinders or is my timing just way off.Man this is really getting to be frustrating. I just cant seem to get it running good. I did put in the new plugs,distributor cap and rotor. I will put in the points later.Any ideas about what I said?
Thanks Joe

[r_towle]

did you get a rubber adapter for the carbs so we can sync them???

Rich

[JOE M]

did you get a rubber adapter for the carbs so we can sync them???

Rich

Yep I got a rubber pvc adapter from home depot. Seems to work well. I just cant get cylinder 3-4 to work. I dont know if its a timing thing or what. I think that the car sounds better but still not there. Like I said the valves are loud but they have always been loud but now I can hear a distinct ticking sound. I might still be off with the adjustment.

[type2man]

if your car ran fine before you installed the carbs, then the carbs are your problem. If you don't know exactly how to adjust valves on a 914, I would leave it up to a pro or youll cook your valves...

[JOE M]

Rich stoped by and saturday and listened to the car run. He seems to think it`s close to running o.k. I did make an adjustment to the valves and he gave me some good tips so I will get under there hopefully today after work and readjust them. Like I said earlier I could hear them a bit louder than before so I might be slightly off. The good news is that the carbs seem to be working well but I am still confused about cylinders #3-4 not changing when its idling and I remove spark. I hope to get the linkage hooked up today and make some adjustments to the carbs. All I want is to be able to drive this thing this year.

[McMark]

An engine is a complicated system. There are a lot of things that need to be confirmed/adjusted before they run well. If you're expecting to do one thing and have all your problems go away, you're going to be disappointed.

You need to:
1. Set the valves correctly.
2. Adjust point gap, or to do it right, adjust dwell.
3. Set the timing. (I've found that a lot of people underestimate this)
4. Set up and adjust the carbs, they're not correct out of the box.
a ) Balance the air flow between the forward and reverse throats using a syncrometer.
b ) Adjust the linkage to ensure equal movement from both carbs (both closed at idle, both hit WOT at the same time)
c ) Adjust the idle mixture screws as necessary.

And even with all of that, depending on how your carbs are set up now, you might need to buy and swap new main jets, air correction jets, idle jets, venturis, etc.

[Cap'n Krusty]

well,
Set the valves first....
Do you know how to do that?

Rich

Nope but I did print the pelican article. I will go by that or by my hanes book. I think I should be able to get it set correctly. I just got back from Northern. I bought a cap,rotor,points and plugs. Like I said the wires are 1 year old.I will stay with them for now. The only cap they had was 1 with out the rev limiter. The 1 I have in now has the limiter. I did not really do anything last week because my wifes uncle passed away.

With the excellent writeup right here in our classic threads, why would you ever do it the hard way? Pelican's method is scarily easy to screw up, and it sounds as if you may have done just that. Properly gapped valves are pretty quiet. The Cap'n

[JOE M]

OK I readjusted the valves,installed the carb linkage and now the car sounds great.It actually runs better than it ever did. Me and the wife took a trip around the block after I let it idle for about 15 minutes (and I made some small tweaks to the carbs). I know the carbs are still out of sync because it is running rich.I did not spend alot of time mostly because I dont completely know what I am doing yet. The only ything that was a little scarry is that the throttle cable stuck a little on my trip around the block. My wife was glad to get back home but she was happy to see the car actually run good.Last year with the old carbs it barely ran.Now I need to get some time to hook up with Rich and this thing running better. By the way Rich thanks for you dime tip. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)
Now im gona have a beer and watch the Celtics game. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/drunk.gif)