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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / Flathead hesitates on acceleration

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Posted By Discussion Topic: Flathead hesitates on acceleration     sarahcecelia 05-09-2020 @ 5:40 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1193 Joined: Mar 2013 After about a year of setting point gaps with a feeler gauge, on VW beetles in the early 60's, I got so I could set them by eye, and set the initial timing with a test light . Later on ,about 1963, I bought a Snap-On Tach/Dwell Meter and started to check myself, and found the dwell always was in Specs,so I continued setting them by eye! As I remember ,some 55 or 60 years ago, the dwell was 52 or 53 degrees? on the 4 cylinder,40 h.p, motor.Every body in the day, used a feeler gauge to set what ever. There were no dwell meters then! Setting points with a feeler always worked in my younger years, but I always uses a very small and narrow one, because the narrow width gives one more accuracy! Signed, an "831/2 yr. old former mechanic." Regards, Steve Lee TomO 05-08-2020 @ 11:01 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 7256 Joined: Oct 2009 My guess is that the dwell meter needs calibration or could be a 12volt only meter. I am sure that your idle RPM is more than 160RPM. Tom DJ 05-08-2020 @ 6:03 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 50 Joined: Mar 2017 Update - first, believe my acceleration issue was loose wires at the distributor cap. I reworked the ends and got them to tighten up. Test ran and acceleration was fine. Wires are only about 4 years old, not a lot of miles, so surprised to find this. I found a collection of used diagnostic tools. For $30, thought they might be worth it. Disconnected vacuum advance. Hooked the dwell meter up and it read 44. My book said dwell for broken in points should be 58 to 63. I tried tightening gap to increase dwell., but couldn’t get it above 44. I bought and installed new points at Napa. Gapped at 15, and got dwell up to 46. Car seems to be running fine. I adjusted the carb settings slightly. I’m not sure if tester is accurate? Posted the results of each test. I hooked the black and red leads up to battery and yellow lead to negative side of coil. Calling it good for now. Open for suggestions as always. 37RAGTOPMAN 05-05-2020 @ 8:24 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1962 Joined: Oct 2009 hi DJ this is a stretch But,,, did you by any chance blow out the new fuel line before installing it,? maybe has a small particle in it,? packing material ? if the points were pitted you should replace them,before you have problems, down the road, try buying USA made parts, I had a similar problem when I did a tune up and did not tighten the condenser enough, started and ran but would no rev up, you could use a little electric motive cleaner, on the points, and use clean bounty paper towels, make sure you use the correct grease on the distributor cam,also check for wobble in the dist shaft, do you have a dwell meter, so you could see if the dwell changes when you rev up the engine, lets hear how you made out, hope this helps 37Ragtopman Maine This message was edited by 37RAGTOPMAN on 5-5-20 @ 8:34 AM TomO 05-05-2020 @ 6:48 AM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 7256 Joined: Oct 2009 A feeler gauge should never be used to set used points. See my answer in this post: https://www.earlyfordv8.org/forum/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=18&Topic=13773 Tom DJ 05-04-2020 @ 10:58 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 50 Joined: Mar 2017 51 8 cyl Custom. Did not remove distributor. Therunwaybehind probably nailed it. I used WD40 to clean up an old feeler gauge I borrowed from a neighbor. Never occurred to me that would harm the points. One step forward, two steps back.....I’m learning! therunwaybehind 05-04-2020 @ 9:43 AM reply profile send p.m. New Member Posts: 180 Joined: May 2019 Over the years I have found this sort of problem to be covered by a saying, "90% of all carburetor problems are caused by the ignition." The secret one like yours, now, mainly for me, was someone touched the faces of the point on installing them or a drip of oil from above when the engine was hot got on the points. Even finger oil will burn on the highly polished and rare metals (tungsten, tantalum) of the points. They usually don't corrode in the box. That is one good thing. Feeler gauge? Totally oil free and no gasoline or petroleum products used to wash it? This message was edited by therunwaybehind on 5-4-20 @ 9:44 AM fsacht 05-04-2020 @ 9:15 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 71 Joined: Oct 2009 What year is your vehicle? Engine type; 59AB, 8BA, etc.? Did you remove the distributor to readjust or service the points? Need more information. DJ 05-04-2020 @ 8:03 AM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 50 Joined: Mar 2017 Put a new steel fuel line on from fuel pump to carb to correct a leaking issue. Leak is gone. While I was waiting to receive part, I gapped spark plugs and gapped points. I should say I am a flathead novice. Took for a ride yesterday and it hesitates on acceleration, in first and second. Seemed to run smooth when up to speed in third. Started fine. It did not have any acceleration issues prior to my “tune up”. I’m thinking my issue is timing related. Wanted to check with you guys prior to making it worse.

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