wont fire

Hey guys. been out working on my 83 Ram 50 for the last 8 hours.

Basic story, last week went to change the spark plugs to get ready for teh oh so fun CA smog. Only to have the plug in #2 snap off in the head :bang:

My truck having the 2.6 and jet valves with tiny cracks between the valves like just about every one of those heads have, I decide to slap on the brand new, non-jet valve head I have. Spent all day swapping over the valves and springs and got everything all back together.

Far as i can tell all the timing marks line up, I have spark, I seem to have compression (when I crank it by "hand" I can feel when the pistons are compressing the air, and hear the air trying to push out any small opening it can on the cold engine) but it wont fire. Ill get a few cranks out of it, it will sound like its about to fire, then the motor struggles to turn, like its pushing against some strong compression or something but no fire.

Check in the manual section on the board,Camoit has the full first gen shop manual posted there. It's been a huge help getting my truck back together.

You could possibly be way to far advanced, so the spark is firing too early. On my toyota, i set it at Top Dead Center and i then point the rotor on the distributor at the 12 o' clock position, when I push it in, it will spin and align right with the number 1 plug on my distributor. I made the mistake of aligning it with the number one plug before I pushed it in and it set it a tooth to far advanced, causing the engine to fire against itself, making it sound like it had a massive amount of compression.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fordubishi

Check in the manual section on the board,Camoit has the full first gen shop manual posted there. It's been a huge help getting my truck back together.

---

ill look through there. I also own a factory service manual. best $25 spent on my truck. Im sure its something stupid im over looking and just too tired to see it.

Sounds like your off by 1 tooth on the timing. Set it back to TDC and re check the dist. timing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by camoit

Sounds like your off by 1 tooth on the timing. Set it back to TDC and re check the dist. timing.

---

thats kind of what I thought at the time. i think I tried moving it both ways with no luck, but at this point Im so mentally fried from the long day after a long hard week at work its hard to keep track.

but If what little bit of my memory is right, as it sits now the crank mark is at 0°, the timing mark on the cam gear is strait up, and the timing mark on the dist gear is lined up with the little ridge on the end of the distributors shaft as it sits in the head.

Battery was at 12.5 volts, a little low for cranking but not supper bad. Ive got it on a trickle charger for over night.

the only time I really got it to fire was when I pulled the fuel line off the carb to make sure the pump was getting fuel, and some gas got into the carb. Ive never had to prime this carb (stock) in the past.

Well if you put a little gas in there and it tries to fire then there is somthing else going on. Sounds like you just need to step back and look at it from a different angle, when you get time. Where are you at in CA? I'm in sac.

Im down in Santa Cruz area.

Got it running and took it over to smog place. Its running pig rich. 550 on the hydro carbons and 8.5% on the CO. max is 150 and 1.5% for CA.

Had the carb rebuilt last year by some place down in LA. Rebuilder my local parts shop uses. I trust the part shop. Theyve been around for a long time and family run, not some big name place. But teh rebuild place had "issues" with my carb. first they sent me a carb and all the fittings on it where wrong. Didnt match the old carb, didnt match the pictures in the book at all. parts where missing ooff the carb, etc. bottom line it was wrong.

Sent it back and sent mine to get rebuilt. They freaked out and found that it was off a Voyager. Passed with the carb in the past. So now the mechanic and I are thinking they jetted it wrong. Going to double check all the vacuum lines again. Make sure all the vacuum goodies are working right and see if I can figure out whats going on.

Well now that it's running you can go through the lean drop process and make it pass. Other wise you can do like a lot of us and go out of town and get a UPS PO Box where the somg does not apply every other year.

Counties that Require a Smog Inspection for Vehicle Registration Renewal

Alameda	Butte	Colusa	Contra Costa	Fresno
Glenn	Kern	Kings	Los Angeles	Madera
Marin	Merced	Monterey	Napa	Nevada
Orange	Sacramento	San Benito	San Francisco	San Joaquin
San Luis Obispo	San Mateo	Santa Barbara	Santa Clara	Santa Cruz
Shasta	Solano	Stanislaus	Sutter	Tehama
Tulare	Ventura	Yolo	Yuba

There are six counties that require smog certifications within certain Zip Codes only. These counties are:
El Dorado, Placer, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Sonoma.
Follow this link to determine which Zip Codes are included.

---

.

Id rather take the time to make sure it can pass smog so that I know the engine is running right. Also may end up getting some of my fuel economy back too. Have a carb rebuild kit on the way. for $40 its worth a shot.

I here that.

I had the stock carb just for smog, then I would swap it out for the weber. I had to remove the large plug / screw in the side of the venturi. It made it run like crap but it would pass. Big vacuum leek made it pass every time.

I have the Weber 32-36, but it has its own set of issues. dosent have the fuel cut off so it wants to keep going when I shut off the engine. Sputters when the truck is on an incline, can never seem to get ti adjusted right.

At this point the only thing I would do swap wise onto this engine is throwing on the spare throttle body and tracking down EFI parts from a starion onto the truck. Only things im missing are computer and harness.

quick question. Is there something in teh carb I can adjust to change the flow rate? I know about the mix screw, but there wasnt enough adjustability to get the numbers down. Would changing the float level help reduce fuel rate into the carb? I just want to know all I can do to lean this out to pass smog.

Just T off a vacuum line and let it have a vacuum leek. Otherwise you will need to find jets. Or you can put a strand of wire in the jet to lean it out for the test. Anything to make the hole smaller. Lowering the float will make it run lean in the top end.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by camoit

Just T off a vacuum line and let it have a vacuum leek.

---

that wont work. inspection of vacuum line routing is part of the test.

just cut a small slice in the brake booster line lol

You can always get a new PCV valve, then take the old one and drill it out. That will make a big leek you can't see or here. You just can't go to big or it won't run. There is also a slotted screw on the side on the carb venturi. It's about 1/4" in size. Remove that. It's hard to see but there is one there, or at least there was on my first gen carb. As far as I know it should be there. With it out you can't tell it's missing unless you look hard. I don't know what to tell you. Smog is why I went with what I'm doing to my truck. It would not pass so it was time to find ways around it. Droppedmitsu was having the same problem with his down pipe "not being stock" so he did the same as me with registering out of the county. It was worth it to us.