Enable me - 60’s cruiser

My wife and I find ourselves in a spot where we really only NEED one vehicle. So I’ve gotten permission to offload my pickup in favor of an older project vehicle. 

Planning to to go look at a ‘63 dart sedan that looks pretty straight for challenge money in the morning. Guy says it “was his daily, but now needs a new carb”. Looking at the photos - it’s got a pretty new carb (and a newer two-barrel aluminum intake on the slant six).  It starts but dies when you give it gas, sounds like a tuning issue on his new parts to me. 

Thoughts on what to take with me and what to look for? Not looking to fix it at his place before I roll off, but planning maybe a timing light in addition to just regular hand tools? Any other suggestions? 

Other than the Obvious carb checks  see if the Fuel Pressure is Enough,  It Doesn't use much pressure but the pump should push your finger off the hose when spinning engine over, Maybe five or six pounds of pressure,  That engine is amazing we beat Hell Outta Momma's 65 dart,

Rust. Especially in the torsion bar crossmember. Additionally, any trim, interior or sheetmetal for those will be tough to find. So make sure none is missing or damaged beyond restoration. 

If it checks off your boxes for agreeable money just have it towed to your place. Think of it as cheap insurance. No worries about bad tires, losing brakes, broken belts , overheating,  etc.  trying to get it home.

A lot of us have AAA just to use the towing for projects. Last time I checked you could sign up for AAA as a new member and get a tow 3 days later.  Cost of a years AAA with up to five 100 mile tows is like $100.00. If you're going to own an old project car and drive it AAA is a good thing for peace of mind. I've had cars towed with no plates, insurance etc. many times and never been asked for any type of proof of ownership or anything.  The tow company doesn't care, they're just subcontractors and get paid by the job by AAA.

Dies immediately when giving gas or after a few seconds? If it's immediate it's probably a clogged main circuit, if it's after a few seconds it's probably emptying the float bowl because fuel flow isn't keeping up (filter, pump etc). It is almost definitely not a 'tuning' issue per se. 

Its a 60's Dart.  Of course it quits when you step on the gas. If you let it idle until its fully warm, it may only stumble.

Its almost impossible to find a carb kit of reasonable enough quality to make anything work well now.

Carburetors rock.

Sounds like a bad accelerator pump

Antihero said:

Sounds like a bad accelerator pump

That's what I was thinking.

Anyone remember what year the "Shart" was? I still look for running carbed garbage to try to blow up because of that thing. LOL

On a separate note. You mentioned you were going down to one car. If you plan to insure the new toy with a collector type of insurance like Haggerty, they expect you to have one "Real" car per driver in the household.

As for qualifying the purchase, rust would certainly be #1, then compression and oil pressure if you are adverse to doing an engine rebuild. 

The other thought is that this might not be the car to buy. It is an axiom in the collector car world that you should always buy the best example of the breed that you can find.  Not only does it get you on the road faster, but it tends to be the cheapest way to own a collector car.

Pete

Pete

two birds, one stone:  ‘60’s pickup

Went and scoped it out this morning. Surprisingly straight, all the trim in decent shape as well. Some rot in the trunk pan, but dry everywhere else. Needs seat covers and a headliner, but decent carpet and door panels. 

Guy is a mechanic, had rebuilt the  slant, shaved the head, raised the compression and decided the one-barrel wouldn’t cut it anymore. Threw on a Holly, it idles (high) unless I choked down the airflow with my hand. Giving it gas sees the engine stumble and die.

Thinking that at $2k, I might borrow a buddy’s truck and tow it home tomorrow, teach myself to how to tune a carb properly. 

Sounds like a vacuum leak to me

I'll add bad coil to the list of things that that can cause the issue.

 If it's rust free and in good shape at a good price and that's what you want, buy it and tow it home. The fun is in the tinkering with it, at home, not on the side of the road.

Well, tuning a carb starts with knowing whether it's rich or lean. Rich won't stall the engine unless it's REALLY rich, like poofs out black smoke as it stalls. If it's to that point the plugs will tell you because they will be uniformly soot black. Lean on the other hand will definitely stall the engine. Lean isn't really a tuning issue unless someone deliberately made it leaner. Pretty much any carb will react to a certain amount of airflow with a certain amount of fuel and none of them are tuned out of the box to be lean, so lean is usually something actually failing, not that the carb has the wrong parts in it. Possible exception would be secondary plates cracked open when there isn't enough airflow to pull fuel out of the mains. 

Welp, dragged it home. Build thread to follow. 

Looks pretty clean.

So much awesomeness.

another crew-cab!   love it.

If you want to get a good quality carb kit for it, try this guy: https://carburetor.ca/

We get our kits from him and I've been very happy with the quality. He may even have an electric choke conversion if you're so inclined.

Ignore the naysayers, people drove these things across the country with carburetors installed and had little to no trouble. Just put it right again and you'll be fine.

-edit-

I just saw that you said he put a Holley on it. Probably using one of those carb adapters.

Chances are, as someone mentioned, there's a vacuum leak. They've probably got the wrong gasket or no gasket in there. 

If it's an automatic, the guy may not have hooked up the kickdown linkage properly because Holley. The Chrysler automatics use that linkage to control line pressure and if you don't have it hooked up, you won't get full holding pressure on the clutches and you can burn up the transmission. 

I upgraded a '69 Barracuda slant six to a two-barrel and headers years ago and I had to make kickdown linkage that worked with the headers and carburetor. It's a bit of work if you don't have the correct stock bits on there.

The Holley will probably need to be tuned for the engine whereas a reman Carter for the correct application will bolt right on and  hook up to the stock linkage properly.

Good luck! Those slant six engines are as reliable as gravity.

Thanks for the tips all! Didn’t get a chance to fiddle with it today, but will start poking around later. I’ll have to pick my times wisely, as it’s currently got no muffler either. Don’t want to piss off the neighbors too badly. 

It it has been converted to a Holley, but with the corresponding Offenhauser intake.  I’ve got the old one barrel and intake in the trunk, which might be the easy button for getting it on the road quickly assuming the linkage could be restored to stock. Much to look at, and hopefully it’ll be rolling again soon.  

Thinking the 450cfm Holley four-barrel is probably a bit much. 

Nice score! There are a lot of terrible carb rebuilding operations out there. The Holley with an Offy intake is a better scenario than some other aluminum intakes; there was a terrible electron beam welded factory piece that is prone to vacuum leaks. A two barrel Holley is at least something you can get brand new, or get tuning parts for.

 I’m always a little suspicious when a mechanic-owned vehicle doesn’t run good.   

Equally confident that you can get it running well in short order

In reply to jfryjfry :

The guy at the quick lube calls himself a mechanic.