By now some of you have been treated to the downhome humor
of the trials and tribulations of me trying to restore my
’65 Falcon over the past year, and having one bad thing befall
me after another. Welll, recently I’ve been trying to get the
ol’ girl inspected, having completed the mechanical part of
the restoration (or so I thought). I failed inspection in MD
on a couple of minor thing that I’ve since fixed. BUT, now I
have NEW problems stemming from one of the things I failed on.
I failed because my exhaust was not ‘adequately torqued’ to the
exhaust manifold of my 200 straight six. Well, I had THEM tighten
it, which they did, but then they noticed this ‘hole’ in the
manifold itself that they then declared MUST be plugged or I’d
still fail. The hole was once the port for a tube that recycled
some exhaust gas back into the air horn of the carb (NOT the
same as the choke tube!). I guess it was a paleolithic cat converter.
Well, I’ve been told they didn’t work too well (the super hot
gas going into the carb decreased efficiency?!?!), so the original
owner simply removed the tube, and left the hole.
Well, I tapped and plugged the hole as the Garage told me, and
the engine has ran like s**t ever since? Why? What can I do about
this. I’m not even sure this is the cause of my problem, but I’ve
checked most everything else. I reset the carb completely to spec,
I checked to see if the timing was still on and it is. I checked
the fuel pump pressure. I checked the cylinder compression. The only
thing I know that’s different is the plugged hole.
What I’m experiencing now is that it WON’T idle. I cranked the idle
set screw almost all the way out, and turned the idle adjust almost
all the way in, and that made it RUN, but horribly! The rpms went
with a steady ‘whrrr-whrrr-whrrr’, fluctuating between 1000 and 1600
(it’s supposed to be 1200 even). Even with those goofy settings, the
engine sounded like it wanted to quit all the time, but without the
set screws set ‘wrong’ it wouldn’t keep running unless I ‘stepped on
it’. Can anyone think of why plugging a 1/4" hole in the exhaust
manifold would cause such a bad response in the engine idle? I’m
not really ‘up’ on backpressure or whatnot, but I’ve also run out
of ideas. I’m really considering ‘jury rigging’ it long enough to
show the station the remaining TWO things that needed fixing, then
taking the plug out when I get home…
Any help would be appreciated. C’mon, help me get this crummy car that
has it in for me ON THE ROAD!
cheers,
Brendan Perry
