OK, rookie question - bogging down in gear.

[Beater69f100]

Hi everybody - this is my first post. I bought a 1969 F100 with a 360 in it for 300 bucks. I love it. It's not much to look at, but she grew on me immediately. One major problem. She idles fine - loud, (no exhaust to speak of, no muffler...), but smooth. The minute I put her in gear and give some gas to take off, she bogs way down, sputters, and threatens to stall until I put the clutch in again. I tried adjusting the timing, but that just made her idle roughly and die. Even if I pull the choke while she's in gear, she still bogs way down again. Get out of gear and coast, smooth idle once again!

Also, I tried revving her up in neutral, and I have to roll on the throttle slowly and smoothly, otherwise she chokes out and wont rev up. I'm thinking the carb may be shot or need a rebuild, but are there any more experienced gearheads out there that can give a clearer solution? Forgive my ignorance; I'm new to American iron! Thanks for any help!

[Wes]

It does sound like an air fuel problem. Have you checked the air filter ? Or even tried to run it w/o the air cleaner ? Another possibility might be the secondary ignition breaking down under a load. check your points, dwell should be 28 to 32 degrees. cap and rotor for cracks/ wear, spark plug wires. Do you have a vacuum gauge ? If you do vacuum reading and needle behavior in your next post will help.

[knightfire83]

Sounds like not enough fuel is getting into the cylinders.

Could be:

- Vacuum leak
- Bad fuel pump
- Clogged fuel lines (rust)
- Pinhole in the fuel lines (drawing air)
- Plugged fuel filter
- Loose carb mounting
- Poorly adjusted carb
- Carb. needs rebuilt
- Accelerator pump not functioning

[FreakysFords]

knightfire83 has a dern good list for ya.

I'd like to add one thing.

A customer's was doing the same thing when he bought it. Pulled the cap and everything looked good. Tried to pull a wire from the cap and found rotted (badly corroded) wire terminals (never did get a single one out without it crumbling). Replaced cap, rotor, wires and plugs, and the issue was resolved. The wires look like brand new until I tried to pull one.

He went ahead and had me do a full test and tune on her, but the base timing was on, TT was on and such. Only other concern was that the idle circuit was rich, and that took all of 2 minutes.

Frank

PS: USE dielectric grease people!