1970 Super Bee Hard to Start

[tskw914]

Hi,
I have a 1970 SuperBee w/ the 383 motor, after the car sits for a while and I go to start it, it starts up after a few cranks, but after I drive it and it warms up and then I park it, and go to start it again it just cranks and cranks and cranks then finally kicks in and starts, everyonce in a while when that happens it will some how start on the first crank, any ideas?

Thanks

 

[69 Runner]

More info. What carb, intake, ignition. Is the heat crossover in the intake blocked or not. We're smart, but not THAT smart.

 

[dla4567]

Heat soak in carb or vapor lock.??

 

[midnightrider1818]

i have seen a coil cause that before. after it gets warm it will start to leak and when the engine is running it runs fine but during start up it will not produce a hot spark. next time pull a wire and stick a plug in it and see how hot your spark is. could be your coil is leaking when it gets hot.

 

[tskw914]

I believe the carb and intake are stock, I know it has headers and an exhaust, I will get over to the car as soon as I can and see what it has for an ignition..

thanks for the all of the fast replies.

 

[tskw914]

this is a new problem, it only just started recently, I did not make any repairs or upgrades, it just started to do this on its own.

 

[tskw914]

the wires are taylor and look new, everything looks good under the hood. I also noticed when I went to storage to start it that it took a few cranks to get it going as usual since its been sitting and when i gave it some gas and brought the idle up to about 1500-2000 the whole car would shake and vibrate, i dont know if the two issues are related?

 

[Meep-Meep]

I'm not sure what your gas is like over there but here in CA it doesn't like carburetors too much. The heat issue was already brought up and I think it's the high vapor pressure of the fuel these days that seems to make it very sensitive to a hot carb bowl. I never had fuel issues in the 80's and always ran my heat crossover open.

One thing you can do is try to catch the problem in the act. Do your typical routine but before you do a hot restart pop the hood and air cleaner and see if it looks like fuel was dumping out of the mains into the engine. Do you have gas stains around the throttle shafts and down the intake? Do you smell gas vapor? My 66 F250 used to condense fuel vapor in the breather hose and I was always smelling gas after I shut it off. I blocked the heat crossover and that problem went away.

If you have points ignition there is a possibility the condenser is bad. A bad condenser can make your car undrivable.

 

[tskw914]

thanks for the response, since it just snowed here I wont be able to take the car out and drive it enough, I have not taken the air cleaner off and looked at the carb enough to see if the cross over is blocked or not, honestly I am not exactly sure what I am looking for in that case. I believe its a stock ignition

 

[rdrunner1974]

Storage

the wires are taylor and look new, everything looks good under the hood. I also noticed when I went to storage to start it that it took a few cranks to get it going as usual since its been sitting and when i gave it some gas and brought the idle up to about 1500-2000 the whole car would shake and vibrate, i dont know if the two issues are related?

How long have you had it in storage? If you are starting it and only run it for short periods, you may have fouled plugs as well as old gas. A fouled plug (or 2 ) could account for the vibration.
Did you put Stabil or a treatment in when you stored it. Clean or replace the plugs and run out the old gas. Is your start by-pass working giving you full voltage to the coil on start?

 

[tskw914]

its been in storage for 2 months, i did not put anything in it since it wont be there very long. I have no idea if the coil is getting full voltage, might just pick up a new one and see how that goes..

 

[roadrunnerman]

did you check you fuel lines they might be cracked or a small hole somewhere.

 

[tskw914]

the lines dont look wet and i dont smell any fuel

 

[tskw914]

**Update**
Well the weather finally cleared up and I had some time to get over to the car and work on it... The rubber fuel lines were all dry rotted and or cracked, the one right off of the carb had a large crack in it. I changed the fuel lines, fuel filter, voltage regulator and the coil. Now the car seems to start just fine, actually better than it ever has since I have owned it. Spark plugs look like they should be changed as well, but the store was out of them so I am waiting for them to come in then I will get that done. I also found out I have an Edelbrock carb, it has the edelbrock sticker but has Weber cast on the side.

Thanks for your help!