MikeM

Not quite.

This is how myths get started.

This is a discussion board, not a debating society.

Would it be safe to assume all these trade ins that hit your daddy's lot went back out on the front row with clothes pins intact or did he take the clothes pins off to hide some underlying problem with the car?

Just curious.

GTOguy

cv67

x2
Remember as a kid in the 70s in the middle of summer pops coming out of the store (back when you could leave your kids bake in one lol) and having vapor lock.

Think its a little worse today with this ethanol crap..once the motors off that fuel may just boil out of the carb not sure how you get around it.

Ill say when my coolant temp hits 190 my idle goes to hell and power goes down also. Thinking about installing a cool can.

kellsdad

Here I go again.

Vapor lock and percolation are similar in that they both involve fuel getting hot enough to vaporize. If that happens in the carburetor bowl, it is percolation. The symptom (as described above) is an engine that is hard to start. But if you crank it (assuming mechanical fuel pump) long enough, it will start once the fuel pump replaces the vaporized fuel .... unless you also have vapor lock. Vapor lock happens inside the fuel pump when the liquid fuel turns to vapor and the pump, which is designed to pump liquids, cannot generate enough suction to bring in liquid fuel to pump forward. ...... Percolation is an annoyance but is not hard to overcome. Vapor lock can only be solved in the immediate term by cooling the fuel pump. .... I have nothing to say about the ongoing "yes they did" - "no they didn't" debate other than that I have experienced percolation many times, but vapor lock only once. That was on Cobra replica with an electric fuel pump on an especially hot day at the track.

MikeM

So, you think your symptoms are attributable to vapor lock? Or something confused with vapor lock?

Here is a somewhat intelligent discussion about a guy that was sure he had a vapor lock problem in his flathead V-8 Ford. Note, these are old cars. Probably most prior to 1955 when there actually were vapor lock problems due to..........................

The other possibilities mentioned are interesting. One not mentioned is, Flat head Fords had a problem of wearing the link between the fuel pump and the cam or just the cam and it wouldn't actuate/stroke the fuel pump. But the guy thinks he has vapor lock.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...theory.178217/

If these tales keep up, every forum member here with some kind of hot weather running problem will cause a run at the lumber yard on buying sheets of masonite or plywood to make carburetor spacers out of.

Nowhere Man

So if this “problem” has been around for 50 odd years why does everyone blame the current blend of gas?

MikeM

I remember when Stewart Warner used to make a lot of money selling electric fuel pumps for these home built/engineered hot rods that were having some stalling problems due to dirty gas tank, poorly routed exhause and/or fuel lines, marginal mechanical fuel pumps that were sometimes feeding four carburetors instead of the one carburetor they were designed for.

See my previous post above about the "clothes pin conspiracy".

MikeM

They used to blame George Bush, now Donald Trump and E 10. When you're wandering on a dark path without a light and you get lost, you have to blame someone for being late for supper.

I think of all the 100's and 1000's of police cars and taxi cabs we pushed out the factory door to go into service, idling all day, all night on hot city streets of every major city in the country. All of the police/taxi packages had lots of heavy duty equipment on them to keep them reliable in this environment and not a single one of them had a pusher electric fuel pump.

That is until 1977 when the 460 Interceptor Package came along. Aside from the much higher under hood temperatures caused by engine smog tuning, the whole under hood was filled with a giant radiator, transmission cooler, power steering cooler, engine oil cooler, dual catalyst and heated engine intake air off the exhaust manifold. This particular package had an in tank pump to overcome the heat the hours of idling in super hot weather out on a black top highway. .

The electric fuel pumps were in service two years. '77 & '78 and then they were gone along with the 460 engine. Later model Police interceptor/taxi packages never used the electric pump. .

Frankie the Fink

As Patrick Swayze said in the movie Road House....."opinions vary"....
That's gonna be my stock response from now on to such things....

65Tripleblack and I went back and forth on the pros and cons of living in Florida a few days before his demise and I sincerely wish I had been more reserved in some of my responses....

I will endeavor to do better in the future...

Brian VH McHale

He loved your responses. RIP Joe.

MikeM

Movie's are make believe and Swayze and many of the cast of Road House are dead and gone. .

You didn't answer my question if the lot jockey took the clothespins off the car's engine before resale? And/or did the lot guarantee the cars ran okay without the clothespins?

Did any of the gas stations in Virginia back then have water in the bottoms of the steel tanks like many across the country and isn't that the reason the EPA banned steel tanks in favor of fiberglass tanks or whatever they were made of?

This didn't have anything to do with you living in Florida, only Virginia. Saying simply, "nuf said" does not constitute you knowing what was really going on back then. Sorry!

68hemi

Vapor lock has been a common problem in the AZ. with carbed cars before and since have live here since 1981. Perc came to be with the ethanol gas. Vapor lock is cured with electric fuel pump located as close to the tank as possible with fuel lines in stock locations and eliminating the mechanical pump (heat sink,) perc is fixed with non ethanol gas and or carb spacers.

Frankie the Fink

Opinions vary...

MikeM

Reading responses on vapor lock and perc on this forum leads me to believe that many/most don't know the difference. There is no doubt there are onsey/twosey cases of vapor lock. Not big numbers on un-modified OEM Detroit designs. Never, ever heard or seen a midyear Corvette with vapor lock if the car hasn't been modified in some way from OEM design.

I guess all my previous testimony on real world stuff is going ignored by the usual crew.

Seems like several here are heavily invested in plywood futures?

68hemi

You live in Indiana, AZ. is a different world. I have experience vapor lock in our extreme heat more than once with both my small and big blocks BEFORE we had ethanol gas and I know the difference between perc and vapor lock.

Nowhere Man

so you where driving cars in the early 1900's

http://www.fuel-testers.com/ethanol_fuel_history.html

MikeM

If the problem was widespread in Arizona, in the middle of the last century, the Detroit OEM's would have made design changes for those cars that were sold in Arizona.. Keeping in mind that Ford and I think GM had proving grounds in Arizona back then to test for hot weather problems. Both also had proving ground or test sites way up north where it gets -40*/'-50*F to test for cold weather problems. Do you really think they overlooked something or did your problems originate because of your driveway tinkering on something they designed right the first time?

It sometimes gets just as hot here as it does in Arizona by the way or anywhere else in the country. Just not as often.

dplotkin

I guess you have to consider that millions of cars have been sold to millions of folks with various experiences among each. That would make your particular experience quite small when compared to the aggregate and may account for the indignance shown by some at your suggestion that you alone are right. You may very well be right. With 8 antiques ranging from a 56 Cadillac to a 68 New Yorker and 20 years experience I have never experienced vapor lock. The one time I thought so it was a blob of hardened epoxy floating around the tank standpipe.

Dan

68hemi

We did not have ethanol in our fuel in AZ. until the early 2000s as I recall. I did not start to notice perc problems until that time. I did not understand what it was until later and could not understand why the usual fix for vapor lock did not fix it. On my recent Rt. 66 trip (from Chicago to AZ. in my 1965 with no carb spacer) I experienced heat soak and perc at every fuel stop until I got to the states with no ethanol fuel and then BINGO, it all went away with the same ambient temps. When I was not able to buy ethanol free gas it came right back.

Frankie the Fink

You've been lucky....

My regional Second Flight 63 experienced it at least 3 times in the summer heat before the wreck two years ago - in fact on that very day. I was running with the hood unlatched to cool the engine compartment down just before the crash - which prob saved my windshield from being destroyed or more body damage. The car vapor locked badly and I pulled off the road for about 10 minutes to let things stabilize with the hood wide open...then sat the hood down lightly on the female latches and continued on my way. 15 minutes later an idiot in an Escalade pulled dead in front of me.

I was the "lot jockey" in the 60s on my Dad's lot and worked on whatever rolled in - I didn't get to cherry pick the problems I encountered... A mechanical, low-pressure fuel pump is an incredible heat sink and designed to "push" gas to the carb. Its not so good at sucking hot gas at low pressure from a gas tank that has been sitting above asphalt that is probably itself at 120* and in most cases the tank is within inches of hot exhaust components..

It happens now and it happened "back in the day" under the right conditions...

This is why a "pusher" electric pump mounted close to the gas tank helps the issue.

Not rocket science...

It happens without a doubt under the right circumstances...
Again - there is not much point in arguing instances of inductive logic, to wit:

"Opinions vary"..