1964 327/300 Stalling Issue

[Bruce Boatner]

I thought I had this problem licked, but with temperatures back in the 90's in Houston (the Astros are the only thing hot here right now!) an old gremlin is back in action. Whenever the engine temp. creeps above 200 degrees, as it will do when I run the a/c in traffic conditions, the engine is prone to stumble and stall from a standing start. I can restart the engine very quickly. Once the temperature cools down to around 190 the stalling problem goes away.

I recently replaced the fuel lines from the fuel pump with all metal lines in place of the the rubber "splints" in place as someone suggested earlier, but the problem remained. Someone else suggested that improper float settings in my AFB could be the culprit, but I'm not sure how the float settings would be affected by heat.

I'm at my wits end on where to turn next. My thinking is that the problem is fuel/carb. related because the engine acts like its starved of fuel. Again, everything works fine until the engine gets hot. I would really appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks Guys!

[Timothy B.]

Re: 1964 327/300 Stalling Issue

Bruce, I had similar problems on my 67 327 SB and it turned out to be ignition related. I replaced my points condenser and all stalling problems disappeared. It was temperature related in my case also, and yes that was the last place I thought to look too.

Yep, one last week of July heat here in Houston (Clear Lake area). But at least we can continue to enjoy driving our cars through the winter! It's a trade-off, but that's one that I am willing to take! :-)

[Bob R.]

Re: 1964 327/300 Stalling Issue

On the 300hp engine 63-65 there is a black plastic spacer. I beleive this spacer is put there to reduce the heat at the carburator. do you have the spaceer in place and is it in good condition. I have seen seen posts on this site suggesting blocking the intake manifold exhaust crossover as a means of reducing the heat the carburator.
Just a couple of thoughts.
Bob

[Bruce Boatner]

Re: 1964 327/300 Stalling Issue

Tim,

I recently replaced the condenser, but I have heard that new condensers are often faulty. Easy enough to pop in another condensor and see what happens. Seems strange that the problem is ignition related, but anything electrical still seems to mystify me for some reason. Not sure I care about the "why" as long as I can avoid anymore embarassing stall outs! I will give it a shot and see what happens.

Thanks for your help!

[Roy B.]

Re: 1964 327/300 Stalling Issue

Well it is heat related and heat causes a weak ground to lose contact .
1 Check your grounding areas, every thing to pretty after painting ( frame, engine and other parts)
2 Some one here said after replacing the points and condenser problem solved. He probably corrected a poor ground between the Dist and the engine block.
3 Many people do such a pretty job of painting their engine and Dist. that the Dist HOLD DOWN has a weak contact point (GROUND) to the block, which in turn causes a hard start when the engine is HOT.
4 This is where your Dist. gets grounded 56 and up, where as the 55 V8 has a ground wire shield covering the wire from the coil to the Dist.
5 Sorry to say this , but you may have to remove some pretty paint at that aera. Half of the problems I hear about are caused by not understanding THIS.

[Mike McKown]

Item # 3 on Roy's list is a "likely".

Check it out. I know I used to run without a distributor/intake gasket just to make sure I got a good ground for the distributor for the same reason Roy is talking about. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, just that it solved a problem at the time.

[Bruce Boatner]

Re: Item # 3 on Roy's list is a "likely".

Hmm...I just had the distributor rebuilt and it did come back with a nice pretty paint job. Easy enough to scrape off a little paint and see if that helps the problem.

Thanks for the tip!

[Mike McKown]

Re: Item # 3 on Roy's list is a "likely".

Bruce:

The next time you have your car out and it starts it's merry miseries, try quickly pumping the gas pedal as you try to accelerate. If that momentarily kills the stall, you don't have an ignition problem, it would be lack of fuel. If you have vapor lock for example, I believe your pump well will still have enough fuel in it to give you at least one good pump shot.

Mike

[Bruce Boatner]

Re: Item # 3 on Roy's list is a "likely".

Mike,

Thanks for the tip. I'm beginning to think the problem really may be ignition related. I stalled again last night and noticed the the engine started IMMEDIATELY afterwards. Also, the engine doesn't really seem to "stumble", instead it seems to "quit". My thinking is that if the problem was fuel related I would have a stumble and/or a hard time restarting, but my logic has failed me many times before. What do you think?

Thanks!

Bruce

[Mike McKown]

Re: Item # 3 on Roy's list is a "likely".

Bruce:

If it just suddenly "dies" (just like you cut the switch off)" it probably is electrical.

I'm far too impatient to do a methodical step/step trouble shoot. In your shoes I'd hook a test light to the distributor side of the coil and bring the ground inside the car and ground it. Then run her down the road until it quits. Your test light should be flashing everytime your points break. If the engine quits while the light is flashing I would "guess" bad coil. If the light quits flashing but stays on when the engine dies your points are not breaking for whatever reason. If the test light goes all the way off you have probably lost power to your ignition. You can work it back from there. May be the Large red wire at the dash panel bulkhead connector not making good connection, poor connection back of the ignition switch, etc.

I mention using the light method due to the fact that your car restarts immediately after it quits which could make the problem rather hard to diagnose. If you can catch it when it happens, it makes things a little easier to solve.

Coils do wierd things. I've never had one not run because of a bad coil. I had one once that the engine would not start on the starter if the outside temp got below freezing. It would fire instantly on a push start. Had another that caused a backfire out the exhaust, sometimes, but the car still ran fine on the occasions that I wasn't getting the shotgun blast.

I've never had a bad condenser that I know of.