I was working on a power drain on the battery and when i got done I started it up and it started to sound funny so I checked it out and found flames coming out the tail pipe 18" and the pipe was glowing bright red.... I'm going to rebuild the carb this weekend and see what happens but does anyone know what could cause this so maybe I could be looking for it and might speed things up, it is all factory. 84 TA LG4 I also have some questions on the power drain and the fip up head light are not coming up but i will post that on another board. Any help on this would be great. Thanks for any help and have a great weekend.

I think either you had it so flooded that you lit off gas and vapors when you finally got it started, or it's running real lean.

Just my nickle (Went up from 2cents -inflation) lol.....

Thanks so much for your input, I should have told everyone about the code 45 i got (rich mixture) also it does it every time i start it. It has been running really well and starts like a dream (when the battery has a charge) and idles great till its starts to throw fire out the exhaust then it starts to miss or lope a little. could it be the timing??? or do you guys think its the carb just dumping gas through the engine??? thanks so much hope to hear more..

Kevin. 84 TA LG4

well Ive seen really retarded timing cause unburnt fuel to combust in the exhaust manifolds, as such if your running really rich and your timing is retarded, its possible that your sending unburnt fuel into the exhaust on start up, then progressively heating it to the point where it catches fire, and shoots out of the exhaust... which might also explain it missing, as the fire in the pipes would," suck," the air out of the chambers when both ports are open... though I fully admit its probably a simpler problem, and Im just speculating....

I'll check into it a bit more thouroughly for you though.

i remember when i started my engine up for the 1st time, shot fire out the open headers... scared but impressed me lol

well this could be a long one but I will try to make it as short as I can. It didn't just shoot out a flame it is like a torch (a blow torch) it got the exhaust cherry red in less than 2 min. from the catalytic converter back to the tail pipe and didn't go out till i shut it down and the next day I started it again and the same thing happened all that gas and air from the air pump is turning it in to a blow torch. I am a scoutmaster for the boy scouts in my area and i have meetings mon. and tue. so I don't have much time to work on it but I did get it off sun. and the intake on the inside looked like a new one nice and shinny from all the gas running in to it. today I started to tare it down and i am having problems getting the power piston out, if it is stuck in the up position could that dump enough gas through it to cause this to happen??? also I am going to put a new float in it and is their any thing else i should change while i am doing this rebuild to save troubles later like the throttle position sensor or anything else??? Any thoughts you guys have would be appreciated and I want to thank everyone that has replied to this.

Kevin

I did some reading on my carb and its different than the one's I am used to this is the first cc carb to rebuild and so far so good I have rebuilt a lot of motorcraft and a couple of theses pre 79 about 20 years ago. every thing I have had has had fuel injection sense then I found out there isn't a power piston in it what i was looking at is the mixture control solenoid. But I bet you guys knew that. LOL Now the only question I have is how far to I go I haven't taken out any rivets or removed any plugs can i stop their and clean it real good and put it back together or should i go farther.

I got it rebuilt and getting ready to put on the car. I need to know where to buy a screw driver to adjust the solenoid stop and adjusting screws that got move during the rebuild I think i got them close but it is just a bench adjustment. I bought a carb adjusting screw driver but it is way to big for this. the screw end is round but flat on 2 sides. I will have to go out of town to get it because i already looked everywhere in my town. I also thought about making one but it is a really small hole it has to go into. Might try some Metal tubing to do that but would rather buy one if I can. I really hope this fixes my problem because I really need my car and if it don't I will be at a loss of whats going on. I will let you guy know how it comes out latter today.

Kevin

PS My son (10 yo) was helping me last night at midnight to get it done. I think he going to like fast cars just like his ol man. LOL He was asking me what we could do the the carb to make the car go faster and I was telling him I would just be happy if it would run and not catch on fire....

craftsman or snap-on makes tools for such a job. grab a catolog and look it up. the craftsman is going to be much cheaper... you can try sears.com or the snap-on site if they have one

I got the car running and it looks like no flames are coming out the tail pipe so that is a good thing. the idle is running a little fast but i will try to get that adjusted latter and i noticed a little antifreeze laying on the manifold so I need to check that out. thanks for everyones help and if you know of anything else I should check let me know.

ya know.....a lot of people go out and spend money on kits to make their car shoot flames.....and then your car does it natrually and u automatically wanna get rid of the feature.....you should embrace it for its special skills

btw...how did ur rear bumper NOT melt from all of that heat? i have seen flame throwing contests where the paint on the metal trunks begin to bubble....