hey everyone, it's been a long time since i've posted a thread here. Some of you might remember me.... my car is an 83 GSL

anyways, onto the goodstuff.

As for the update part of my thread, before winter, i had removed my carb and intake so that i could make all the proper block off plates for the ACV and that pipe going to the cats because I removed the rat's nest. I finally got around to making those a couple weeks ago, and today my new intake gasket and o-rings came in the mail from Racing Beat. So i began to put all the stuff together, and it went fairly smoothly. I made sure to torque the intake bolts down to 15 ft. lbs. and I got all 4 carb nuts tight. I hooked up all the vac. lines to the carb spacer, and hooked up the plug wires and the battery. I pushed it out of the barn because i knew it was going to be loud and smokey because my muffler exploded last year when it backfired :o anyone remember that? Anyways, back to topic.

I guess this is where the troubleshooting part starts.

I turned the key on to make sure the fuel pump was running, and it was. I let it run for a little bit while I went up to the carb to see if gas was coming out from the accelerator pump. Then i cranked it over and it popped and fired right up. I let it run for a little bit, maybe 30 seconds, and then i shut it off because I hadn't yet filled it back up with coolant in case I needed to take it all back apart again. The thing is, it didn't run any differently than before i took the intake off in the first place. The reason I took it off was to fix the vac. leak that was coming from the ACV blockoff plate I made out of sheet metal. It didn't sound like it was running on both rotors, and it would like quick fire on both and then go back to running on one. When I revved it up, it wouldn't rev well because it wasn't firing on both rotors. I shut it off to fill up the coolant when I decided to check the plugs to see if they were fouled out. Turns out both plugs on the rear rotor were fouled out, so i cleaned them off with brake cleaner and a wire brush. I tried to fire it up again after I got some coolant in it, and when I was cranking it over, the stupid thing backfired again just like it did when my muffler blew up. That's when i decided to call it a day.

Sorry for the REALLLY long post here, but I'm just trying to tell the whole story. And I'm also starting to think this car just hates me....

aaaanyways, anyone know what could be happening here?

 

Sounds like the rear rotor got flooded. Take the plugs out of the rear rotor, and swap them with the front and see if it clears up.

 

Basic troubleshooting principles ar to start at the beginning and work your way through the functions.
First, I would start by de-flooding both housings according to the procedures on this forum.

Once you know that's all good, start looking for the problem. Losing the rear rotor could be from losing spark. If you're still getting spark on the front, that would rule out any shared components between rotor 1 and rotor 2. Sooo....distributor cap and plug wires could be the cause. There's also a possibility that the spark plugs on the second rotor could be cracked.

Make sure that it's actually one rotor that you're losing, and not the leading ignition.
The only causes I can think of would be: Distributer, ignitors, coils, wires, spark plugs.

 

ok, guys, thanks for the replies. I changed the ignition over to Direct fire on the leading with HEI ignitors, replaced the dizzy cap and rotor, and got new plugs and wires last year while i was working on it. I didn't pull any wires while the car was running, so if i can deflood both rotors, probably change the oil from the many times i've flooded it before, and clean the plugs, i'll see if that does anything. if i get it running and it still runs the same funny way, i'll start pulling plug wires to see where the loss of spark is coming from. I won't be able to get to the car this week at all, so i'll probably have an update sometime next week.