L695speed

I drove the car on perhaps a 15-20 mile loop. The last little bit it was hesitating a lil and the check engine light was on. I pulled a 44 trouble code. There might be another one but I don't know. Its not easy to contort yourself to hold the paperclip on the ALDL and read the light. But anyway yea I pulled a 44 code and according to the factory manual it says its too lean. It was definitely in some sort of limp mode that time, as it changed the car's throttle response.

There might be another code or two but I haven't been able to keep the light flashing long enough to cycle through the codes back to the 1-2 system checks out code.

Thing that doesn't quite make sense is why are all these issues popping up after over 200 miles on the carb rebuild?

RocketyMan

Hey speed...

Did you ever adjust the idle mixture screws with the dwell meter? Or what about the idle air bleed?

What were your final screw turns on both of those?

L695speed

A friend of mine sent me the tools to adjust all those things. The IAB is perfect. But the mixture screws I haven't gotten around to trying it with the dwell meter yet. But the screws are between 2 1/2 and 3 turns out. So it must be very close unless a stop is out.

Also the 44 is the only trouble code on there.

L695speed

I found a thread by a newbie who is having an identical problem to mine. Right down to the symptoms of the car too. Here is the thread that he started. I posted to say I am having the same problem. Seems like he and I ruled out ideas that the other had. But I could be wrong.

Thread that he started:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech- ... e-but.html

L695speed

I've been wondering if maybe the MAP sensor might be my problem. Does anyone have any input on it?

DoubleV

Doubtful.

Note I didn't read your posted link yet but it seems like your idle screws are set a little too lean. Also, your rich/lean stops could be adjusted too lean as well. Was your lean stop set with the proper gauge? Do you have about 1/8" plunger travel? How did you set your AIB exactly?

Untill you get a dwell meter, you're just going to be shooting in the dark.

L695speed

My idle screws are somewhere around 2 3/4 turns out. Plunger travel is 1/8". A friend of mine sent me the tools to do most of the adjustments including the IAB. The IAB is perfect because I had the tool to get that right. The lean stop was set according to the factory spec in the manual, and the rich stop was set to get 1/8 travel on the plunger.

I know I need to get a dwell meter on it. Maybe I'll try that next. But it doesn't explain why after over 200 miles on the rebuilt carb, with nary an issue that it would start going to hell on me. I'll see if I can get the meter on it soon. The car is not my DD so I don't need to have it done immediately. But still its frustrating that when you think you are in the clear and its running awesome....it goes to hell.

RazorN8

The idle air bleed and the idle screws will only affect the way the car runs at idle. Is this where you were noticing the issue, or did the problem start when you were moving? I think I would suspect the O2 sensor is giving a false reading, or that there is a vacuum leak somewhere. If your O2 sensor is old at all (i.e. you haven't replaced it yourself) replace that thing, its a $20 piece of mind and one more thing you can rule out.

L695speed

Yea I do have another O2 sensor, but I've been hesitant about replacing it because I just put a new one in a few months ago. The problem started when I was cruising the other day, and it showed up when I was moving, not sitting still. Thing about a vac leak is I've gone over the whole car and I don't see any possible leaks, in fact I even fixed a few issues like the vac sensor over on the driver's side of the firewall, and the MAP sensor didn't have any vac lines going to them. I fixed both, and even after I did the MAP sensor, it still ran the same crap, no power, barely able to leave my driveway, and threatening to stall. But when its sitting still idling and not in gear it has plenty of response and plenty of power. Based on everything I've done, and everything I've seen so far this is not internal.

That was what got me thinking I have a bad sensor. So you think I should just replace the O2 again and see what that does? It could be a bad sensor maybe even a bad MAP. Now that I think about it, it did throw a 34 code that I initially thought was a vac sensor, but I found and repaired the vac line for it and the code went away. Could it be that maybe I've got a bad Vac sensor?

If it is another bad electrical compoent it wouldn't surprise me. I've replaced just about every electrical part there is from rebuilding the dizzy to replacing the battery. This car sat out in the weather and got exposed to the weather despite our attempts to keep it covered. I just need to find out which sensor is causing it.

RocketyMan

Hey speed...

I don't know how you think the IAB is perfect? What do you mean by that? You need to have the dwell meter and adjust the IAB in combination with the idle mixture screws.

I remember when I took my carb apart, the lean stop was 3 and 1/2 turns out. But that was too far out for the 1.304" travel and blah blah. My lean stop was seriously 1 and 1/2 screw from lightly seated. Then I adjusted my rich stop for the 1/8".

L695speed

What I meant was when using the tools my friend sent me, including the "hook" style measurement gauge for the IAB, the IAB according to that tool is perfect. Part of the problem is because I changed a couple parts for better ones, or I forgot to count screw turns (in at least one case I lost count), I had to revert many of them back to the specs in the factory manual. But even so, it shouldn't really change too much.

The weather is not so great today, so I won't be getting the dwell meter on it today. The one thing that is getting me iffy about doinig it is, they keep saying that you need to run it at 3000 at one point and that is not easily done with one person. But what I am going to do is go back and recheck the lean stop. It could be possible that I misread the mike and messed up the adjustment. But if the plunger travel is 1/8" then where the stops are doesn't matter as much if I recall correctly. I'll recheck that too.

RocketyMan

Well that's cool you got the hook gauge thingy. Do you recall how many turns on the IAB you did?

L695speed

I'll see if I can check today for you rockety. I'm suspecting that my plunger travel might be slightly out. I'll have to see.

RazorN8

None of this idle stuff is really going to effect the car's performance when it is off idle. I never measured the turns out on my IAB when I rebuild carbs. It really doesn't matter. Every engine is going to want that IAB and the idle mixture screws in a slightly different place anyways. the only way to get it "perfect" is to use a dwell meter. Have you checked your plugs or plug wires? Do your plugs seem to have been run lean? Get one of these (napa has them) and check your plug wires to see if you don't have an ignition problem somewhere.

L695speed

I know the only way to get it absolutely perfect is with a dwell meter. I've mine ballparked so the car will run without issue. All my wires and plugs are tight. The O2 as I've said was replaced not too long ago and the fuel filter has less than 400 miles on it (could be clogged with crap from the car sitting...) I was having a discussion about what the computer will do on another board and it sounds like I may have run the car long enough that the computer completely yanked my timing. The car won't run for long (like before when it was my timing) and also I had a discussion with a mechanic at a former pontiac dealer who said that if the throttle response isn't what it should be and its lean it could be the accelerator pump. Now when I check it the plunger on that side seems to function correctly. I know I put the check ball in, and I checked for the rod that is beneath the plunger pivot and that is there too.

I knew it wasn't going to run forever, and I knew I was going to be repairing something before long. MCS is functional as you can hear it clicking (will confirm) could be the TPS too. But the general rule is if its sealed don't screw with it.

RocketyMan

"It doesn't really matter." ???

I disagree. When the ECM is telling what the MCS to do, and while the MCS hits the IAB traveling up and down, it's only going to make more work for the ECM to try and get the right mixture if something is more out of whack.

Idle is still very important because I know that my car idles very crappy when the IAB is off by as much as 1 turn. And if I'm at a stop light and need to get up and go to avoid an accident, I need to have my car very responsive. So idle becomes very important in order to have a versatile car.

Regardless that every carburetor has different turns on IAB or idle mixture screws or whatever, it's still nice to know what ballpark to look for. Speed, to my knowledge, is running nearly an identical engine; 305, ccc-quadrasquirt.




Hey speed, try checking your accelerator pump by just opening the flaps and throttling it to see if they squirt in fuel. Both of mine do at a very good looking skinny stream. The two streams look like they squirt the same volume too.

L695speed

Well folks, I tore apart my distributor, and it seems like I did indeed find my problem and it was with the pickup coil.

Here are the pics. Just the bad stuff but its self explanatory.






Any thoughts on this are welcome.

RocketyMan

Hmmm...I can't really tell from the pics if the wires are ok on the coil. Did you test the resistance across the two leads? Maybe there's a specific ohmage or something it needs to be for it to check out.

L695speed

I did put a meter on it. Haynes says to look for 500-1500 ohms. The Factory manual said 1500 as the round figure. While there was the occasional spike up to 600, 700, and 1400 range when I was playing around in there, it always settled at 1 ohm. I have been getting the same thing with two different meters, and I think one of them just went up to .8 ohm and didn't go any further. Suffice to say the coil is most likely bound for the trash. I am getting a new one today, and the fact that one of the main parts in there is obviously broken doesn't help. I will check the resistance in the new one to be sure but I think I might end up using the new one just due to the fact that one of the magnets as shown in the photo is totally gone. Its missing a whole section to it

RocketyMan

Well that's good. Just make sure that when you go to check the leads that you're not touching them at all because your body creates resistance as well and could skew your results a little bit.

But anyways, I was thinking last night about why you would be running lean from a bad ignition. If anything, I would expect you to be running rich because you wouldn't be getting as hot of spark and more incomplete fuel burning.

L695speed

I'm holding plastic not the metal on the leads themselves so I don't know if its counting me or not. Also, think about it, lean conditions mean too much air. If the O2 is sensing more air then it means its not burning at all perhaps. Maybe the hesitation and stalling was not the result of something wrong in the fuel system, but rather severe missing in the motor from no spark or along the lines of that, because of a bad coil. Just a thought.

L695speed

Ok guys I need an answer fast. I've got the dizzy apart, just wondering something, I pried off what was left of the pickup coil assembly and I found a greasy brown/black dirt substance under it. Was this what is left of a seal, or is it just dirt and etc that needs to be cleaned up.

Heres a photo

RazorN8

Rocketyman, i agree that a responsive car is important and that a good ball park is necessary to get the carb to run correctly. The ballpark is the idle mixture screws 3 3/8 turns out and the IAB set to correct dwell.
L695speed, wish I could help. I don't know what that crap is. When it comes to distributors, I just go to napa or a-zone and get a reman one. I've only had to do it once and the distributor has held up really well so far. My guess is that that is a bunch of junk build up from the 20 odd years that thing has been in there. But thats just a guess. I think a lifetime warrentee dizzy from autozone is like $120 + core.

L695speed

yea, neither manual I had said anything about a gasket or anything. So I just cleaned it out and put the dizzy back together. Hopefully that broken magnet (only being held together with screws) was the cause of the car running like crap with the advance hooked up. We'll find out either tomorrow or by weekend's end. I just gotta drive the roll pin home, put it back in and ensure my timing is correct.

RocketyMan

I dunno about the part for saying it's lean. My guess would be more unburnt fuel. aaaaeeehh..?? I dunno. You could be right. It's just hard for me to wrap my head around that.

L695speed

well I have a hard time with it being a fuel issue because of how it runs without the advance hooked up. I was in the process of installing the dizzy when we had a power outage. So...either later tonight or tmrw I'll try starting it up again after I am sure I have everything in order.

Auggie

I have had the exact same problem (code 44) two differant times. The first thing I noticed was that when I turned the key to run position the M/C sol. did not click for 20 sec. Removed the top of the carb and the jet needles were stuck down. i removed them with the plunger and polished the plunger shaft . I reassyembled the plunger and oiled it and put the carb back together. Problem solved for around 6 years but it came back (no clicking noise code 44) so I did the same thing again and so far so good.

Auggie

L695speed

Problem with that idea....my MCS clicks as soon as you turn the ignition on. Besides, as you can see from the photos, my pickup coil had a broken magnet. The problem I'm having now....somehow my holddown bolt for the dizzy got stuck in the hole. I tried to work it tight or loose and it just snapped, so I'm gonna drill out the bolt and get a new one first. Not sure how it got stuck but all the sudden it wouldn't go either tight or loose. so......time to break out the drill, and either chip out the bolt from the threads or use a Heli-coil. nevertheless, I'm stuck for now. And I have my Mom's car to fix as well.