86 Colt Vista Carb troubleshooting HELP!
Good friend of mine has a car as described above, needs help in getting carb to work.
If gas is poured into the carb, it sputters and dies, but SOUNDS like it wants to start.
Carb was on his other car (same make/year/engine), but the car caught fire and burned. All the wires were torched. Attempts were made to try and circumvent the emissions crap, but apparently, there's some of that needed to make the car go.
I read on another site that there's an O2 sensor, idle solenoid, accelerator pump, and mass air something attached to or wired to the carb, but how to check function? Also, there's something like a "fuel need sensor" or something that we can't figure out.
Any ideas would get a hard workin' man back to feeding his family!
If gas is poured into the carb, it sputters and dies, but SOUNDS like it wants to start.
Carb was on his other car (same make/year/engine), but the car caught fire and burned. All the wires were torched. Attempts were made to try and circumvent the emissions crap, but apparently, there's some of that needed to make the car go.
I read on another site that there's an O2 sensor, idle solenoid, accelerator pump, and mass air something attached to or wired to the carb, but how to check function? Also, there's something like a "fuel need sensor" or something that we can't figure out.
Any ideas would get a hard workin' man back to feeding his family!
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Those foreign feedback carbs are are VERY complicated, expensive, and time consuming to work on. It can be done, but even if he can do the work, by the time he buys shop manuals, a GOOD digital volt-ohlm meter and some parts, he could very well have $400.00-$500.00+ into the project. If he has to hire the work done it could run a lot more, way in excess of that the car is worth. Seriously, if it was mine(I do all my own work)I would not fix it. I would buy another clunker, and sell that thing to someone for whatever I could get out of it for parts. 0 -
Good reply; nothing we hadn't already figured out though.
He lives in a remote, backcountry location, so having someone come out to fix it would be out of the question, as would dragging it down the mountain to sell. The other one burned up whilst he was trying to get his pregnant wife to town for a special delivery, so he doesn't have a whole lot of cash right now (even to buy another junker). We hooked up his Fluke meter to see if anything matched what is in the manuals(over 250 pages of useless trivia), and of course, nothing read remotely close to what the books say.
We figured out that it has a water choke (water heats up the carb), a good diaphragm on the accelerator pump, and is missing a sensor/plug that lives on the side. There's also a hole in the intake manifold that is caked with carbon deposits that we think may have something to do with the unburnt gases or drawing gas/air into the carb, but wouldn't the accel. pump be doing that job?
If we can't get it running soon; we may have to push it down the side of the mountain for target practice. At least that way, we get some satisfaction out of it's predicament (but then, he would need a lot of rides everywhere, and I'm not into the 500-mile cruises anymore).0 -
Seems like I remember that carb was made by Mikuni.
They are a POS, hard to work on and harder to keep fixed.
Your best bet is to go to a dealer and ask them if you can make a copy of the carb vac and emission control lines from their shop manual. Chrysler or Dodge dealers will have the manuals in their Service Department.0 -
You might check with an auto parts store and see if a re-man carb is avilable and the national debt on it.
I'm grasping at straws here. Tonight I'll dig through some of my books and see if I can come up with anything.0 -
I am happy that I am not your friend.[:D] Feedback carbs SUCK!!! Maybe pull the carb off an old Ford tractor and "re-engineer" it to work.
My first response was to junk the whole car and get something else, but I understand his not having the pesos to buy another car.
Good luck.....He's gonna need it.0 -
I realize your are concentrating on carb problems. But what is the entire hisory here?
Turning over and sputtering without starting is also a symptom of a timing chain jump.0 -
quote:Originally posted by Warpig883
I realize your are concentrating on carb problems. But what is the entire hisory here?
Turning over and sputtering without starting is also a symptom of a timing chain jump.
Couldn't it also be a fuel pump?0 -
Car was parked last summer when he bought the "other" one to save on gas. Everything worked when parked, except carb was removed to rebuild. Rebuilder said carb was fine, but needed cleaning. So he cleaned it and charged $35.
Car that burnt had identical carb/engine.
Zangara Dodge was the source for almost all the manuals and tech sheets.
Another mechanic thought maybe it wasn't starting due to a "run condition sensor" that we have not been able to find in the books or on the car.
Spraying starting fluid ALMOST gets it started, but will not run a complete revolution. Besides, we're wasting all our pyrotechnic fluid!
Carb is a Mikuni/Solex DIDtf series, and we tried just hooking up a VW solex with a manifold adaptor and manual advance, but that wouldn't even chirp it.
Maybe if he'd have bought a Le Car.....0 -
It's all Bush's fault. 0 -
So to pester you more, I'm still kind of dense here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but sounds like you have two cars and one carb, right? You now have the carb off of the burned car on the non burned car, right? Where is the other carb?
I'm running behind and still haven't looked through my books. I have to go to a fire drill in a bit and then maybe a gun show, but I promise I'll look today.0 -
Sorry, dug through all my books and don't find anything an a Dodge Colt. I have very little information an any chrysler product. 0 -
Call some wrecking yards. You can probably get a carb for much less than you alredy have tied up in grief. Decent chance that it will work.
D.0 -
Ok, here is a thought on this. If the car has sat since last summer with no carb on it, what are the chances that water has gotten down the intake, thus causing the rings to be stuck. It may be very lacking on compression at this point, and that would explain the symptoms. What you might want to do is pull the plugs, squirt a bit of oil down each cylinder and try it again. Believe me when I tell you I have experienced this on more than one engine that sat open. You have nothing to lose trying this and it might be just the ticket. swamp_thing 0 -
Jap carbs can be a nightmare.My wife had a Honda in the 80s and I was going to rebuild the carburator.I knew it was complicated so I was trying to pay close attention to what I was doing as I was disassembling it.The damn telephone rang and it had to stop what I was doing.I ended up having to replace it with an aftermarket carb and I think the Honda carb is still in parts,in a box under my work bench. 0 -
We've tried all the simple stuff; fuel pump tested fine, no water in the engine, oil level to spec., calling every junkyard within 250 miles AND the web (new carb is $950+shipping),there's only 1 carb left and it's the one from the burnt car.
There's a carb rebuilder in Farmington (+/-200 miles away) that has the plastic bodies, but no jets or sensors,etc. that offered to look at it for a cord of wood($2-250 worth), and I just got back from up there; he's got the wrong bodies.
The rainy season starts today, and the mud is getting deeper up where we're working on this thing; HALP!0 -
Whoa....won't start with ether? Maybe you got sumthin' other than carb problems. Did ya pull the distributor cap off and check for corrosion? Have ya checked the timing? 0 -
IT LIVES!
After trying everything (yes, EVERYTHING), I looked at the coil wire where it entered the distributor; not on.
So, after pushing it back into place and priming with a little more ether; VIOLA!
Man, I wish he'd said something about when he took the wire off to check for spark! I checked for spark on the distributor end, and he checked the coil end without putting the wire back in securely.
Thanks for all your help and support, we couldn't have done it without you!0
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