Hi guys! I was registered here a while back as UltimateAlternativeWaver (shortened my name up considerably!), hard times fell and I had to put my hobby on hold. My ride is a #s matching '79 L-82 auto.

'Kay, so a while back my battery went kaput on me. Car's been garaged all winter, and lack of expendable income has kept me from a lot of stuff that needs doing. In short, dead battery, expired tags, flat tire, no gas...

I got a new battery, fixed the flat, put some gas in and fired her in an expected cloud of smoke. The car's been burning a bit of oil for some time now (seems to be valve seals), and some probably leaked over time into the cylinders. Yep, I'm a bad person. But times haven't been very kind to my wallet. So anyway, I start her up and she's misfiring like mad. A timing light reveals 2 of 8 plugs weren't firing, so I replaced 'em all and tried again (they were pretty well carbonized and a bit oily). This time she fires up, runs like a champ for 10 second and starts missing like mad again. The timing light now shows all 8 plugs strobing properly.

I ran the car up to operating temp for about 20 minutes, and suddenly she starts purring. No misfiring, no loping, no shaking, works fine. Backed her up to cruise the neighborhood, she sputters and dies, out of gas. Set back but elated the car runs, I gas her up again. She runs for 10 seconds and promptly begins to choke again. Shaking, misfiring, and dies if I let off the pedal. Checked with the timing light again, all 8 strobing.

I figured that since the car ran fine when it was out of gas, she might be running rich. Adjusted the needles a bit with no noticeable effect, so I put 'em back the way they were.

Where do I go from here?

 

Hmmmm. runs great one second and crappy the next. Hmmmm. maybe the EGR valve is sticking open. The EGR valve is suppose to operate under certain conditions and not in others. So when the conditions are created for it to open, if its dirty or faulty, it may not be closing when its suppose to. if its sticking open when it should be shut. The motor will run badly and likely crap out. You might try unhooking and plugging the vacuum line that rund to the EGR valve. Then once its closed it will stay closed as long as the vacuum line is dis-connected and pluged. Sometimes if its stuck open you can reach in there with needle nose pliers and force it shut.

 

Okay, well...I think I discovered the problem, but it ain't the EGR. Seems the float's WAY out of wack. I yanked the air cleaner to get at the EGR and left it off, and gas started spraying vertically out the carb (a snorkel-lookin' protrusion behind the secondaries presumably leading down into the float bowl) onto the hot manifold. I shut her down posthaste. :eek: