Down again! Miss firing issues.

[texanidiot25]

What are the signs that an HEI dizzy is dying?

This morning when I fired it up, it came alive fairly well, got it revved up enough to set the fast idle choke and when it settled down to the idle speed, it started running incredibly rough. After a few seconds of not evening out, i realized it was missing on a cylinder or two pretty bad. This was backed up by the raw gas smoke coming out of the tail pipe. I shut it down, check all my plug wires, fire it back up and it runs fine.

I get about 2 miles before it starts to missfire again. But now it's only at low RPM... Any stopping was a scared put it in N and keep it revved up. Got onto the freeway (turning around meant too much traffic to get home) and with the motor spinning at freeway speeds it stopped missing. got the 3 miles of freeway I needed, and knew I wasn't going to make it through my school traffic. So I kept my speed up, u-turned and pulled into the nearest gas station. It died while rolling in to the pump. I pumped it up since I needed gas anyways and checked my fuel filter (went ahead and chagned it, since i still have the dirty fuel line problem from before) and checked all my plugs to make sure they were tight. Tried to fire it back up, but it just never bumped to life. I pulled a wire off the dizzy to crank and listen for a spark, but I couldn't hear any obvious spark. No one was around to help so I can't say for sure if it was or wasn't getting spark. But I couldn't hear it arching.

I just pushed across the lot to a parking space and left it.

Came back after school and it cranked up, still missing and dumping lots of raw gas through the exhaust. Knew it wasn't going to come home, so left it. My dad is driving up to go take a look, besides the HEI dizzy he thinks a bit of rust may have gotten stuck inside and frozen up a needle or a float, making it just pour gas into the motor, flooding it.



Any other theories? Getting annoyed with all the break downs on the 1st 2 weeks of having it on the road.

[phipp13]

Hei dizzys usually work or they don't, it sounds more to me like a carb issue.Also make sure you don't have dry rotted rubber fuel line that will put rubber specs in your fuel thus clogging your needle, seat and float. Me , i'd pop the carb off and remove the top clean it out with a can of carb spray, reassemble and replace. Put a fresh set of plugs in. use 2 fuel filters (the cheap plastic kind) 1 between the fuel tank and pump and 1 after the pump. good luck

[texanidiot25]

We pulled the top of the carb off last weekend to clean out the rust bits. Nothing but new rubber hoses on this motor and fuel lines.

Could be more dirt and crap coming out of the fuel lines again. My tank, though a bit rusty, isn't the source of the rust. We've run it on a seperate fuel pump that recirc'd it around through a few filters and back into the tank, the gas was clean the entire tie coming from the sending unit.

I'll know in due time

[PanelDeland]

Sounds like a fuel problem to me also.Don't get bummed over it they are just teething problems.

[texanidiot25]

Success!

What my dad did was vice grip the fuel line shut and started it up until it stalled out. Sprayed some carb cleaner down the vent tube, and unhooked the vice grip. Fired up. Drove it home. Now both tuning needles upfront actually respond and it idles OK again.

Easy fix, but getting annoying though.