vanderlejm

Hi all, I'm dealing with a problem that has plagued my 1959 Plymouth for the past year -- the car exhibits serious hesitatation (lag between pressing on accelerator and engine response; not surging, feels like engine "stumbles down" then picks back up). Starts and runs fine when cool however.

During this time I've had the carb (stromberg 2 bbl) rebuilt, put on a new vacuum advance, rerun the fuel line away from the engine, replaced glass fuel filter with modern canister type, put on new fuel pump, changed plugs, rotor, condenser, points, had everything adjusted to specs.

I think that I've narrowed occurance of the hesitation problem to the following: just after making a wide left hand U-turn (from one to the other side of a service road, under a highway overpass). The problem does not occur with a right hand turn. This seems really odd and I'm wondering now if the problem could be mechanical. The left U-turn requires some prolonged braking, so could it be brakes not releasing (car has disk brakes front and rear). Or could it be wheel bearings? I hear a low-level metalic sounding noise at about 45 mph (running straight ahead) after the "hesitation" begins

After making a left hand U-turn the car feels like it's dragging, and it needs a lot more gas to get it moving than when it's first started. Experienced all this again this morning and by the time I got the car home, only about 2 miles after the hesitation started, temp gauge read that the car was running hot (and installed a 160 degree thermostadt within last year as well; typically gauge needle doesn't reach the half way mark, thouth this morning it was a bit beyond half way).

I'm thinking of installing an electronic ignition, which might be a good idea anyway, but not right now if the ongoing problem is mechanical and not fuel/ignition related.

Why would making a left-hand U-turn be associated with hesitation and a dragging feeling? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

moe7404

my guess is the way the float is hung.. if a float rubs any it will cause trouble. of the float has a hole causing it to sink, may be just a little or a lot. if the float is right you can hold housing with the float so the pin i straight up. and tip the housing back and forth the float will swing with very little movement then its right.

62Furious

I beleave that you have some carb tuning or ajustment to do with the car running hot, as for the drag and metalic sound you may have some brake work also to do

vanderlejm

Sorry it's taken a while to respond and thanks for all the advice. I'm going to have the tank dropped and checked out. Likely something that should be done with a 50+ year old car.

The carb very well may deserve another look. Before going back to the carb (that was rebuilt only several weeks ago) I will try advancing the spark, as well as looking at the tank.

Any other ideas are greatly welcome.
I will keep posting on results.

moe7404

allso check the fuel hose going from the frame to the engine, to see if it is cracked. that will let air get sucked insted of fuel.

vanderlejm

Thanks again for the advice.

Fuel line from body to engine checks out fine. Can rolls smoothly to a stop, so maybe not a mechanical issue.

I'm going to focus on the issue of hesitation/dragging as a carb adjustment issue (or a fuel issue having to do with an old gas tank).