Been working on the Maverick almost all day, just doing little stuff here and there. Been hearing a little valve chatter when I get on the gas hard, so I pulled the valve cover and made sure all the bolts on the rockers were torqued good still, middle bolt was a little loose. Got it back together, fired it up and it ran smooth as can be. Took it for a spin, went about a mile and it started sputtering, spitting and black smoke was comeing out the exaust like crazy and it died. Got out and found that the whole carb and everything surrounding was wet with gas. Pulled the air cover off and found that gas was comeing out of the copper tube that points upwords sort of that I believe is a vent tube. I halfway figgured the float was sticking so I tapped on the float bowl with a screw driver, held the gas to the floor and it fired back up and ran like crap for a few seconds and then smoothed out. Got about halfway up the street and it died again and this time I ran the battery down trying to start it back up. This time had to go get my mom's Taurus and push it back to the house. Whats the deal? You guys think its the float sticking? 250 I6 with the stock carb on it that I rebuilt myself. Have about 30 miles on the car since rebuilding the carb, and it's ran great up until now.
Done fixed it. I replaced the filter on the front of the carb earlyer, and on this Carter carburetor the needle is in the fitting that holds the filter. I took the fitting and all off earlyer for easyer access and the needle fell out on the driveway. Found the needle laying in the middle of the driveway, put it back in the carb and it's running good as ever. Thanks to all that uhh... didn't help.
Jamie; glad you got it fixed. Sorry didn't get to your post, but you put it in at 10:44 in the evening, and I am in bed by that time, most of the time. I get up at 4:00am. Be patient....someone will always help out.
As I pointed out the other day, while you were at my house, I' just a little older than you. By 22:44 (time of your first post, I was in bed). By 00:36 (time of your second post) I had been asleep about 1 hour. Most of us East Coasters, who work for a living, were probably in a similar situation. So, if you didn't get help, it was the absolute fault of the West Coast guys. BTW, what time is your first class?:16suspect
Don't worry bout it guys, my own stupidity caused the problem in the first place. This whole car has been a big learning curve for me. Now my truck, I been messing with it since I was 14, know every piece like the back of my hand. But the Mav is diffrent. Sleep? Who needs sleep... Class starts at 7:30 AM
Jamie; keep at it. Best way to learn is by being there and doing that. You going to have it ready for a show or two this summer? I'll keep you posted on where they are at. Hope to see you there!
Freakin carb! Jamie, your carb problem sounds like dejavu. I had a similar problem last week. I rebuilt the carb on my girlfriend's 72 after it started giving her problems. We picked up the car a few weeks ago. It had been sitting for at least a year, so who knows what kind of crap is in the tank. One night after driving around for a while, we parked the car and smelled a strong gas odor. Opened the hood and saw fuel spitting from around the throttle shaft at the base of the carb. After fiddling around with the carb, I could still not find the problem. The next day I decided to get a carb kit and perform the 'ol rebuild. This was my first carb rebuild and everything went well. To make a long story short, I had to take off the carb top two different times to take care of the same problem I had before. The fuel bowl kept filling up like crazy. After pulling my hair out trying to figure out the problem, I took the needle out of the seat and a piece of what looked like plastic debree about the size of a finger nail clipping fell out. This happened not once but two times, and on the same day! After all that work, to have everything screwed up by such a small thing! Lesson learned: filter your fuel!
Earl, by this summer she should be a fine tuned running machine. alexzoinks, I had the same problem with my dirtbike. Took me forever to figgure out what the problem was.
