'02 fires but immediately shuts off!

[Guest Anonymous]

I've been having my head-swapping gasket changing ignition replacing dilemma for the past couple weeks. The good news is I got the car to firing and well-timed status. Its also getting fuel from the stock solex (which I didn't mess with when I changed heads), but now it will crank, fire, rev up for a second then immediately die. If I give it gas, same problem. I checked for vacuum leaks, no un-hosed fittings. I should mention that when I changed distributors (mine had a bent shaft), the new one has a vacuum advance that has *2* vacuum inlets (or one outlet?), instead of one like my previous one. Its from a '74 I believe. I'm not sure how to hook those up any special way, I just have both going into the vacuum set up. There are two other sensors/electronic terminals I need to know about. One is on the passenger side of the carb.. what is that supposed to hook up to? The other is on the top of the intake manifold by cyl #4. Is my problem with the idle settings of the carb? I didn't mess with it so I'd be able to just reinstall my intake manifold but I wonder why it would give enough fuel to fire up but then die right away. What all should I be looking for/adjusting here? I can't tune the carb if it doesn't idle (nor do I really know how w/ this solex)

-Joe

[Guest Anonymous]

Did you check the emissions fuel cut off valve that is inline between the output of the fuel pump and the inlet on the Carb ? I believe that it has to see 12V+ when the car is running. Take a look. HTH.

Jerry

[Guest Anonymous]

Jerry,

I don't see anything like that, from the pump, the fuel line goes straight into the carb. Unless the cut off valve is actually on the carb itself. Is it? Why would it run and rev up a little bit (4k rpms? Don't have a tach..) but then won't idle? Really weird..

-Joe

[Guest Anonymous]

Is what he is refering to, the small electrical cylinder on the pass side of the carb. If it does not get 12 volts the car wont run.

[Guest Anonymous]

It was worth a shot to ask. When it runs, is it smooth, or does it stumble ? Could it be a big vacuum leak at the intake or carb base ? I don't know much about the Solex carb, but when I had a similar problem w/ my car, it turns out the needle and seat were sticking closed in the fuel bowl of the weber, so it would only run briefly. I'd cut it off, let it sit, then it would start right up again.

[Guest Anonymous]

Does it fire when the starter motor is running, then stop immediately when you let the key return to the run position? If so, check that you have all the wires connected at the ballast resistor, bypass relay, and coil. If yours is a newer car, you have an extra wire from the starter instead of a bypass relay.

[Guest Anonymous]

are there two parallel inlet/outlets for air or water to this thing? If somebody has a good photograph of the way their solex carb is hooked up, PLEASE send it to me, or post it? I don't know which wires are supposed to connect to the thing on the intake manifold by the 4th cyl, or which one is supposed to go into the carb. There is one terminal on the drivers side underneath where the second progressive diaphram thing is, and there's one underneath that thing with the two outlets. Neither are on the float side of the carb. What about the egr crap? I don't have the air pump or the water hookups on the car, should I just disconnect all those little electrical solenoids underneath the windshield cowl (there's three of them).. they all have vacuum line hookups, I don't know which goes where. There's a diagram on the passenger side but I don't have half the crap they are supposed to hook into. I just want my setup to be as simple as possible. I took the egr thing off the intake manifold since its not hooked up. What HAS to be hooked up for the car to run. Can I just plug all of the vacuum outlets except those going to the distributor or what? BTW, when it starts it sounds pretty smooth though it might be missing slightly. It should be smooth enough to idle at least, since I set everything at tdc.

-Joe

[Guest Anonymous]

See that's what I was thinking. For some reason about the same time I quit cranking the starter (return to start it seems to just stop firing. As if it loses spark. I don't have a ballast though, I use an aftermarket pertronix 3.0 ohm coil. I don't know where the bypass relay is, but there are three wires coming from the starter... one from the ignition switch area, one going to alternator (I believe), and one from a whole meddle of wires near the battery. I get ~10v to the coil when the key is in start (fahrt, or whatever), ign on. I also have 12v at the starter. I wish I had somebody who knew what they were doing here to help me. Its probably something very small and simple. I just can't figure it out and I'm about to give up trying.

[Guest Anonymous]

A 3.0-ohm coil without a ballast resistor is fine.

Connect a voltmeter (-) lead to ground at the coil. Connect the (+) lead to terminal 15 on the coil. Turn the key to Start; the meter should read about 10 volts during cranking.

Turn the key to Fahrt (ignition); the meter should read about 12 volts. If the reading is low or zero, your problem is a missing connection (green wire) from terminal 15 on the ignition switch to terminal 15 on the coil.

Email me with results and model year. --Curt

[Guest Anonymous]

Curt,

I tested what you said, there was 12v (though I had to hook up positive to the starter and negative to the + side of the coil, I used the same terminal that the ign switch goes into. With the ign on, it read 10v and it dropped a bit when I cranked it, but not all the way to zero. There is a green wire on that side of the engine bay, but it wasn't hooked up to the coil a month ago when the car ran and it didn't affect my results on either the - or + side of the coil when I connected it. I find that the rpms still cut out even if I hold the key over to crank it, so it must be fuel or something. So there are two prongs that I must do something about, WHICH one is for the emissions fuel cut valve? There is one below the secondary diaphram on the carb, sticking out towards the drivers side, and there's one prong underneath the thing htat is connected to the throttle linkage and has two inlets, look like for water, I dunno because they were never hooked up when the car originally ran. And which plug should be going into there. There's about 6 empty plugs from the wiring harness, should it have two or one wire going into the terminal, and what color? And which prong are we talking about. I don't know what either of the things do, but I'd certainly assume one is the cut off valve. My car is a '75. This is really pissy, because it sounds so good then it just dies. It has a good solid 1 or 2 seconds of life and I know it would run if I could figure this damn thing out.

-Joe