Fire went out

Just got our wd45 running yesterday after a total rebuild with different crank, cam, rods and pistons, head, etc. She's running a little rich and smokes a little. Dad drove it over to a friends house, to wire in lights and do little odds and ends on it. On the way home going up the hill it smoothed out and ran great for like 10 seconds, and then it started surging, like it would be wide open and then it would do nothing, wide open, etc.. Finally it quit. So after realizing she wasn't locked up, the dodge and i pulled dad the rest of the way home. Im thinking maybe we have a fuel delivery problem, since it was surging like that, but i guess it could be electrical. Haven't checked it out yet, just shoved it back in the garage. what do you think it could possibly be?

Check the float level in the carb. Its possible its set a little high which is trying to flood it causing the richness or smoking. When you started up the hill the angle of gas level in bowl changed letting the needle shutoff the flow to bowl allowing it to run well for the short bit it did. IDK, just a guess from what info you've give. Goodluck

I had one mess me up bad last night.... I went out to crank our puller to load for today. She fired right up, ran good for about 2 seconds and began to miss, then finally blowing fuel all over me it went to one cyl. I shut it down. I pulled the plugs, they were soaked, spinning the engine there was no fire.

I haven't bought any recently, but Napa or Echlin parts seam to be the best quality,  Brass terminals in cap and rotor.  The aluminum parts from many suppliers are just plain junk....that said I think the cap on my AC is a junk one, I better put a new one on before I hook it the end of the month.

I'm really not a fan of MSD boxes on these low speed 4 cyl engines.  I do like MSD stuff, but I just think it's over complicating something that is already pretty simple. 

Juiceman, double check the flange end of the crankshaft, some cranks have a wick in them (you'll see a cork or black solid crud in the center) and others are solid.  It could get burned out when welding the main journals back up or be falling apart from many years.  If it is, drill and tap and put a pipe plug in the end, maybe just do it anyways for good measure.  If you are unable to drill and tap it for a plug, simply dig stuff out and put some silicone or epoxy in the hole.

Don't worry about fuel.  We're probably around $3500 per hour for fuel (5-6 gal in 12 to 15 seconds at $2.75 per gal) if I figure it out...but we only run a few minutes per season at that fuel rate.  Fuel's cheap, it's the maintenance and traveling that sting.


Edited by wi50 - 03 May 2014 at 2:04pm