Hi folks - I'm new to this forum. I did a quick search and didn't see an answer to my issue, so here is my question ...
- My father-in-law spent years building a 1966 F100 show truck (my avatar pic). But he has not been able to do anything with it for the past 4+ years, so it sat in his garage. He had someone drain the fuel a couple years ago. Now I am taking the truck and want to get it back to full operation.
- It would not start unless we poured gas directly through the carb ... and would die if I stopped manually pouring in gas ... conclusion, carb needs to be rebuilt. (NOTE - when manually pouring gas in, we only did this for about 30 - 40 seconds.)
- I rebuilt the carb last weekend, reinstalled it, and the truck fired up! HOWEVER, it won't idle on it's own yet and when I rev it up, it blows serious amounts of black smoke. (Had to evacuate the garage after a couple minutes ... gasoline smell was so strong.)
- This was my first attempt at rebuilding a carb, but I checked almost everything. Float level looks good, float needle is new. Only thing I did not take apart was the jets.
- I also tried a simple experiment ... while it was running (very roughly), I started pulling spark plug wires. (Distributor, cables and plugs are all new) I could not tell any difference in the engine when I pulled several wires, but some wires nearly killed the engine.

I dont know what to do next??

 

black smoke usually means carb mixture is too rich. take it off the engine and re-check all you did and look at the jets.

 

Is this a stock engine, 2 or 4 barrel carb? On pulling plug wires. If the ones that did not make a difference, might they have been front and rear on one bank of cylinders and the two center cylinders on the other?? If so the barrel of the carb that feeds those cylinders MAY NOT be supplying fuel. On the black smoke, over fueling Yes. Did your rebuild kit supply a new power valve?? It should match the original AND they usually supply two power valve gaskets, make sure you chose the correct one.

 

Thanks for the responses. It will be a few weeks before I can get back to his house and try your suggestions, but I will do so.
- I will pull the jets and look them over. Question - do I need to plan on replacing them, or just cleaning them?

Regarding the engine, it is a stock 352 with Ford 2 barrel carb.
- I don't know if my plug-wire test is accurate since the engine was running so poorly, but I will check closer next time.
- Power Valve - yes, I put in the new power valve. BUT - I noticed gas leaking out (very small amount) from the valve when we were running the engine. This means that I dont have a seal (wrong gasket is likely), and that could cause the flow of extra gas. This feels like a strong candidate for my rebuild error!

Thanks again for your input ... I will update in a few weeks when I get to play with it again.

 

Sounds good SBP. AND, welcome to the site. AND, the truck really looks GREAT! More pics if you can, everybody here loves pictures.

 

welcome. black smoke could be a few things. the two most common are choke stuck closed, or almost closed, and
improperly adjusted air/fuel mixture screws.
try running the screws in till finger snug (not tight) then turn out 1 3/4 -2 1/4 turns and see if it makes a difference.
if it does, then you can fine tune it with a vacuum gauge. adjust the screws for max vacuum.
this will take some time, as you do one screw, then the other, then back to the first one, then second screw until you get best vacuum.
timing also will effect vacuum, but that is another part of fine tuning the engine.

 

Thanks much ... I already tried the fuel mixture screws, no impact at all. Thank you for the input.

 

Maybe look at the power valve since you stated there is gas leaking there

 

Folks, I wanted to give an update. Great news, the truck is running again. This is the first day since my previous post where I was able to visit my in-laws and work on the truck. The problem turned out to be the Power Valve, as you had indicated. There were two problems ... First, the gasket for the valve was not seated correctly and therefore not sealed. And second, the channel in the metering block which the power valve controls was blocked for one barrel but not the second barrel. After fixing these issues, she fired right up. I still need to tune the performance but she is running. I can't thank you enough for your knowledge.

 

SBP, thanks for coming back with the update, we like that. Good luck with the finishing touches. Cap