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Car keeps stalling when I put it in reverse

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Dave--still looks like a vacuum leak,somewhere..Intake manifold? Will it stall when you put in drive also?Drive&reverse should make no difference(at least we're eliminating the trans from the equation)The engine sounds good,though.Mine hasn't run for 8 or so years.LOL
 
oldbee said:
Dave--still looks like a vacuum leak,somewhere..Intake manifold? Will it stall when you put in drive also?Drive&reverse should make no difference(at least we're eliminating the trans from the equation)The engine sounds good,though.Mine hasn't run for 8 or so years.LOL
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Yeah she stalls in drive. That vacuum was holding steady at 18 till I messed with things. I added the second video. You can see the gas trickling in the carb on the second one. I am going to adjust the floats on carb ( simple thing to do for now ). Need to get the r.p.m down. I think that is the key here for now. Keeps stalling on anything under 1000 rpm and that has nothing to do with the tranny. Thanks guys.
 
You said the car has been apart for some time now right? Engine was rebuilt? Was anything done to the carb? Rebuilt? Has it been sitting for a while? Did it stay bolted to the intake or was off the intake? What im getting at is if it has been sitting for a while, creepy crawly critters or just old gas gunking it up can cause issues by blocking passageways. If it was just pulled off a shelf and bolted on, that could be a problem. Im still thinking its with the idle circuit. Either fuel or air is not doing what it should. There is an air adjustment between the two idle mixture screws. It may be capped, i cant tell from the picture. Did you read the info in the links posted down page 3. I believe one of them talk about how to modify and adjust this.
Try this, when you turn the idle down and its starts to stumble like it is going to stall, give a squirt of carb cleaner and see if the vacuum picks up. That will tell us if its leaning out. Or better yet, tap on the accelerator pump and get it to squirt fuel. Dont hit the throttle just tap the plunger with a screwdriver handle and see how she reacts
 
Hemi Rebel said:
You said the car has been apart for some time now right? Engine was rebuilt? Was anything done to the carb? Rebuilt? Has it been sitting for a while? Did it stay bolted to the intake or was off the intake? What im getting at is if it has been sitting for a while, creepy crawly critters or just old gas gunking it up can cause issues by blocking passageways. If it was just pulled off a shelf and bolted on, that could be a problem. Im still thinking its with the idle circuit. Either fuel or air is not doing what it should. There is an air adjustment between the two idle mixture screws. It may be capped, i cant tell from the picture. Did you read the info in the links posted down page 3. I believe one of them talk about how to modify and adjust this.
Try this, when you turn the idle down and its starts to stumble like it is going to stall, give a squirt of carb cleaner and see if the vacuum picks up. That will tell us if its leaning out. Or better yet, tap on the accelerator pump and get it to squirt fuel. Dont hit the throttle just tap the plunger with a screwdriver handle and see how she reacts
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Carb was totally rebuilt myself. Put in new plunger, new floats and adjusted them. New everything that would come with a rebuild kit. Cleaned everything in carb cleaner. Blew out all the ports. I do think your right on the idle circuit ( will have to look into carb more ). I read a lot of carb info so far but will have to read more. Thanks.
 
Hello all. I was just told by a Carter guru is that gas should not be pouring in those primary's like that and to adjust my floats or check to see if there is crap between my needle seat.
 
What we used to do for debris in the needle and seat is take a pair of pliers (actually we used hose crimp pliers) and clamp off the inlet to the carb at the flex line. Run the car until the gas runs out and the car dies. Remove the clamp. Many times the rush of fuel back through the needle will wash the debris out. But one thing. Be sure that the flex line is in good condition, otherwise you could cause a fuel leak from a deteriorated hose. You don't want that.

Ron
 
Ron of Chicago said:
What we used to do for debris in the needle and seat is take a pair of pliers (actually we used hose crimp pliers) and clamp off the inlet to the carb at the flex line. Run the car until the gas runs out and the car dies. Remove the clamp. Many times the rush of fuel back through the needle will wash the debris out. But one thing. Be sure that the flex line is in good condition, otherwise you could cause a fuel leak from a deteriorated hose. You don't want that.

Ron
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Well I called and talked to a Carter carb. tech. person today. He said in NO way should gas be dribbling out in the primary's above the throttle blades in park and that my float setting is off. He said tip the horn upside down and there should be a minimum of 7/16 gap there. SO I PULLED THE CARB AND CHECKED THAT GAP AND IT WAS 1/4. GUESS I MISSED THAT ONE. FLOAT DROP WAS GOOD. WILL BOLT IT ON TOMORROW AND GIVE IT A SHOT.
 
The float thing should help but usually it would flood at idle when they are too high. If it does not work, here are a few checks you might do.

1) Check if your secondaries are really closed when the throttle is closed. The air passing through the secondary has no fuel added to it and would cause lean condition. I had that happened on Carter carb before.

2) If you close the idle mixture screws, does it stall or does it still run on park? If it still runs, either the carb is sucking fuel from somewhere it should not or the blades are opened to much causing fuel to be fed from place it should not (transfer slot or cruise circuit). Usually an motor running with high blade opening is an engine with a bigger cam or too less timing. I have engines that only runs at 20 degree initial timing with a 230/236 cam @ 0.050. Increasing timing would allow less throttle opening at idle at leaner mixture.

3) Stall converter maybe too tight for the cam you are running or defective. What is the duration of the cam at 0.050" lift and the lobe separation ?

Good luck, I know the feeling I had this happening to me a few times ended up drilling holes in throttle blades, flushing fuel tanks, recurving distributors and swapping torque converters. If you have another carb lying around, you could also give it a try.
 
Hello all. Well took a trip around the block twice today for the first time in 13 years. The car STARTED FINE, HERE IS THE PROBLEM. CAR RAN ON WHEN STOPPED', BUT THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE CAR WOULD NOT START EASY WHEN HOT. IS THIS ALL TIMING ? Thanks.
 
Jesus Christmas Dave.....I love you man but you're piece mealin us to death here.

Answer these questions and we MIGHT can help.

ENGINE:

IGNITION: Include vacuum or mechanical advance please.

TOTAL IGNITION TIMING NOW:

RPM TIMING IS "ALL IN" BY:

COMPRESSION RATIO:

INDUCTION:

CAM SPECS: Not "one step above stock" I mean.....how lame is that if you REALLY want help?

CONVERTER STALL SPEED:

All these other guys are peein in the wind without that info. If I HAD to guess, I would say your timing is somewhat still retarded. That cam is NOT "one step" above stock soundin off like all that. We need REAL numbers, Dave. Or we can be of absolutely no help my friend. If you don't know the answers to these questions Dave, get them and we can help.
 
Wow, what a long strange trip it's been.
I just read this thread for the first time...Kudos to all involved for their patience and for staying with it.
This site and it members are second to none!

Now, can someone fly out to New York and get Dave's GTX figured out!?

Rusty? Hemi? Ron? Meep? Cranky? Anybody???

Have a great day!

Good luck Dave.
 
RustyRatRod said:
Jesus Christmas Dave.....I love you man but you're piece mealin us to death here.

Answer these questions and we MIGHT can help.

ENGINE:

IGNITION: Include vacuum or mechanical advance please.

TOTAL IGNITION TIMING NOW:

RPM TIMING IS "ALL IN" BY:

COMPRESSION RATIO:

INDUCTION:

CAM SPECS: Not "one step above stock" I mean.....how lame is that if you REALLY want help?

CONVERTER STALL SPEED:

All these other guys are peein in the wind without that info. If I HAD to guess, I would say your timing is somewhat still retarded. That cam is NOT "one step" above stock soundin off like all that. We need REAL numbers, Dave. Or we can be of absolutely no help my friend. If you don't know the answers to these questions Dave, get them and we can help.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that. Those who know me really know everything your asking , but I forgot about newer people ( or I private e-mailed the info ). It is a 440 engine ( 10 TO 1 COMPRESSION ), Chrysler orange box ignition ( I am not sure about advance ), lunati cam ( 230 duration at .050 lift ) 486 lift, 290 duration, 800 cfm edelbrock carb, 12-13 degrees on timing, Converter is a turbo action 2800 stall. Rpm is at 650 idle in gear. 12 -15 on vacuum. Hope this helps. Its all about tuning from here on in. THANKS AGAIN.
 
Alright. I KNOW when you say 12-15 vacuum, you're talking about initial timing, not total, which is what I asked. Do you have a way to check TOTAL timing? That's initial, plus mechanical, plus vacuum advance, if you have it. Usually it's all in by 3500 RPM and can be as much as 60*....although for HP applications, you generally want it all in by 2000-2500. Lets forget about that for right now.

Now, you say 10:1. Did you MEASURE it at 10:1? In other words, is it an honest BLUEPRINTED 10:1, or did you just get pistons that said they CAN get 10:1? Not trying to be nit picky, but there's a BIG difference in "saying" I got 10:1 and there REALLY being 10:1. Get me?

I'd just GUESS from your description so far, your compression is lower than you think it is and so the engine requires more timing to get the job done. Can you be more specific about the engine build? Piston part number? Assembled deck height? Cylinder head cc volume? Piston head volume? Head gasket thickness? The more specific you can get, the closer we can come to a real answer, instead of a guess.

You say you've chased down vacuum leaks. Have you used a spray bottle with water to double check? DON'T use carburetor cleaner. That's dangerous. Spray water all around the carburetor base and intake gaskets to check for vacuum leaks. Also around where vacuum hoses connect, anywhere that could be a potential vacuum leak.

If you have no more vacuum leaks, I stake my money on retarded timing. It may need as much as 20* initial to run well. 230 @ .050 is WAY more than one step above stock. Good luck.
 
Wow, you've had a long difficult road with this thing. We've all been there! Not sure if this will help, but I had the same problem with my small block 360 with automatic 904 trans and Edelbrock 600cfm carb when I first got it. It would stall when I put in reverse, but not when I put in drive. Can't remember if it behaved differently warm or cold. At the same time, if I was driving and slammed on the brakes hard, the engine would die too. It would start right back up though.

Those two things told me that vacuum was involved.

So here's what cured mine -
1)The power brake booster was hooked up to the intake. I plugged the intake hole and hooked up to the back of the carb instead.
2) the vacuum line from the carb to the distributor vacuum advance was hooked up to the passenger side port. That is what the Edelbrock manual recommends. However, the car will run better with it hooked up to the driver's side front port. I switched this line to the driver's side vacuum port and plugged the passenger side port.
3) After that, I re-timed the car
4) Then I used a vacuum gauge and set the carb fuel mixture screws and adjusted idle screw

I'm no expert and just winged it. It cured my problem.

My local trans guy also told me that Reverse is different than Drive in the way the trans fluid fills up in one area and is a deeper gear (can't remember what that's called) and creates a bigger load on the engine which can be effected by the vacuum, especially with the power brakes applied. After mine was sorted out I didn't have the problem anymore, but I do remember that before then if I put it from Park to drive quickly or started in Neutral and then put in Drive for 5 seconds and then shifted to Reverse, it would go in gear smoother and sometimes not die as easily.

A 1/2" plastic or wood spacer between carb and intake will also help with your hot starting (fuel evaporation and line lock) issues. Edelbrock carbs are notorious for that problem.

Just sharing my story in case you can extract any help from this.
 
Thanks all. When my car WOULD DIE IN GEAR I HEARD EVERYTHING FROM STUCK VALVE TO BAD CARB.,,,,,, THE PROBLEM WAS THE TORQUE CONVERTER ( PROBLEM SOLVED )

I %100 DO NOT HAVE A VACUUM LEAK ( I CHASED THIS DOWN LONG TIME AGO WHEN IT REALLY WAS THE CONVERTER)

The wont start when hot issue and run on is just a little problem in my eye,s and will get through it. Will re-time car today. HAD A SPACER IN THERE AND TOOK IT OUT ( MAY PUT IT BACK IN )
 
LOL--me and 'rustyratrod' are going crazy!.... Too much initial timing can give you a hard hot-start. What is initial timing? Believe, 5deg. is stock. It's been 30+ yrs. since I've worried this stuff,LOL. Sure good to get the old brain cranking again.
 
With the car still in the air,remove the vacume line to brake booster and plug it.Now start the car and see how it does.This will tell you if the brake booster has a vacume leak.
 
I'll confuse things further - Big Blocks are known to be difficult to restart hot. Characteristic. Unless of course you know the technique. Whatever that is. I can usually catch it. But if I mess up the restart can be difficult.
 
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