8n HELP again!

[Dr. Dave]

I'm back. Anyway tonight I cleaned up all wire ends, made sure they were going where they were supposed to go, pulled the distributor and cleaned the points and reset them, checked for spark at each plug and that they were also going to the right places, and jumped here and there to include across the key switch. Still runs cruddy even when I jump across the two resister connection screws BUT won't start or even sputter without that! When it is running and I try to accelerate quickly the engine stutters and coughs trying to catch up. Im lost..... Btw I also cleaned out the carb. Any more ideas?? Could I have put the engine back together incorrectly?
Dave

 

[DollarBill]

Your symptoms indicate weak ignition or a lean mixture. First suspect should always be the ignition system before working on the carburetor.

Take any old spark plug and open the gap up to 1/4" and ground it to the engine - Connect any one of the spark plug wires and try to start it. Correct spark will be bluish/white in color. Orange/red means you've found a problem.

If you have good spark, try choking it when you give it throttle. Does it hesitate? If no, then enrich the main jet - it's lean.

 

[jackinok]

is this converted to 12 volts? does it have a 12 volt coil on it? do you have good fuel? good fuel flow ?have you cleaned the carb?have you checked for vacumn leaks?firing order correct?timing correct? good wires?good plugs? just a few things to check.the first thing i generaly do is change the plugs. especialy if you just rebuilt it and had oil in the cyls.

 

[old]

Well I will guess a bit here since you left out info. You have a 12 volt system and a front mount distributor right?? First thing to check is spark. You need a blue/white spark that will jump a 1/4 inch gap at all the wires. If you do not have that then there is your problem. Since you said you pull the distributor did you set the points at the correct setting of 0.015 not the 0.025 that is for the side mount distributor

 

[Dr. Dave]

It is the original 6 volt, new plugs, good wires (hooked up correctly), seems to have good spark, point gap set, new fuel and good flow, cleaned carb. Is it possible to put front mount distributor is 180 degrees off?
Dave

 

[jackinok]

its pretty hard to get the front mount dists 180 out .they generaly wont bolt on right and you wind up breaking something. You could have got it out of time when you put on the cam gear ( if you did)or have the valves too tight. have you tried starting fluid and see if it fired? One thing that concerns me,you say that jump the ignition resistor and it fires up,to me,that sounds like you have a bad resistor,OR it is possible someone over the tears has put too long of a screw through it and its grounding on dash.i have seen them go bad,and if one had a high resistance short to ground throuh the phenolic jumping it would help. try pulling you ignition resistor off the dash,and if possible test it for resistance,should be down around .75-1 ohm when cold,and go up some as it warms up.its basicaly a wire wound resistor that changes with heat.if its up around 3-4 ohms when cold you wont have enough to fire reliably.And it wont fire the plugs under compression.even though it may fire good when you have them out.now if you have another ceramic resistor somewhere thats your problem.all you should have on a 6volt system is the original ignition balance resistor.

 

[Dr. Dave]

Hi Jack, you are correct that it will not start unless I jump across the resister terminals or just remove the wires and clamp them together. The it will start but still runs lousy... sound like it is missing at the exhaust pipe. When I try to increase rpm it will studded and shudder until it achieves the higher rpm but then it will smooth out until a load is placed upon it. Weird!!

Dave