'59 Plymouth Forum

Ok, so here's what happened......

On Saturday August 27th, i attended a cruise night about 20 miles away,i stopped and got some gas in the old Plymouth,(I call her Bernice) and she ran fine on the way out there which involves some highway driving, but when the cruise night ended, we went to leave and Bernice was hard to start which is unusual, but i got her going and off we went, i found once i got out on the main roads she hesitated and lurched some, and i got on the highway, but was not comfortable and quickly got off, she idled fine at stop lights, but missed, hesitated and lurched all the way along, finally i got somewhere where i could pull off and have a look, and saw nothing visibly wrong, i did notice tho i could see no gas in the clear in line fuel filter that i have, so i had Sandra (those of you who have me on Facebook know who she is!)crank it and no gas came up, some friends of ours who were with us at the cruise came by and i said that it looks like the fuel pumps gone, i have one at home, so we went to get it, changed it in the parking lot and it pumped gas fine and away she went, but she still ran terribly!

Got her home, and the next day worked on her some, thinking maybe the carbs bad, i had a rebuilt one of those, so i installed it and a new fuel filter and found very slight improvement, so thinking i may have got some bad gas,(there's not a lot showing on the gauge) i got a gas can and filled it with super and put a bottle of gas treatment in as well, Bernice now runs somewhat better but still stumbles and hesitates,and I'm seeing steam coming out of the crankcase vent tube and from the exhaust.

I did a compression test, and it shows 100 PSI in each of the 6 cylinders, changed the spark plugs as well,but none of this has helped, this is driving me crazy, i've been thinking head gasket, but i put a new one on a year and 1000 miles ago, i did check the cylinder head torque, and its at 70 ft lbs, which is what its supposed to be, and when idling, the temperature reads normal.

Thoughts?

I can't see her from here... But I would be checking the compression again. some steam from an engine that has been dormant is normal, also an engine that is at stociometric 14.7 toi 1 air to fuel ratio produces lots of water. Anti freeze steam smells sickly sweet. Sag and hesitation when hot could be vapor lock.'really bad here in Colorado.' problem cold I would check float level, point condition and possibly condenser problem. poor condenser can run but not run well. check point dwell, could be worn rubbing block.

The subject thread I thought was about Mopar Ricky but now I see it is about a 59.. I have no other comments on the situation other then it could be a dirty jets in the carb or a points issue in the distributor. Non-scienctific of course. Just a wild a** guess..

John Q.

I would suggest you focus on the fuel system, as this is where the problem seems to have begun.
It may be time to drop the tank and have it flushed.
Have a look at the old fuel pump. Maybe you can determine what killed it, and may be killing its replacement.

I forgot to mention in this post that the fuel pump i installed in the parking lot was one i got on ebay, and it leaked from the pump body, so thinking about the fact that a fuel pump just goes with no warning, and the old one got me that far,i put it back on when i saw the other one was a leaker, and it worked fine!
So, after a lot of thinking and talking to various old car buds of mine both in person and on the net, my focus now is on the head and the head gasket itself, I've been advised by several people to replace the head gasket again and take the head to a machine shop to check for warpage and/or possible cracks in the head.
Will keep y'all informed on how it goes, I'll get going on it sometime this week.

Bob