Fire Ball!

[TWHawk]

The 1960 would not start this morning no matter what I tried.

Fine.

I get home, and decide to give it another shot. She's got a secondary fuel pump, so I turn the key and let that tick away while I go remove the air filter, and close the butterfly (choke?) on the carb. Give her some gas, turn the key, and almost get her going.
So, back under the hood, close the butterfly again, give her some gas by manually moving the accelerator from under the hood, walk back around, turn the key, and success! - For about a split second before she coughs up a ball of fire and dies.

So, I put out the fire, wait a minute, try again - Same result.

This is where I learn that even though I rebuilt the carburetor on the 75, I don't know anything about them. Some of the parts on the carb don't move smoothly, so I think a good cleaning is in order. Beyond that, I'm stuck.

Ideas?

[TWHawk]

Ok, so I just had to mess with it again.

This time I set the carb to a fast idle, and cranked her over. She blew more fire, but it went out right away, and she kept running. I let her idle for about 5 minutes, and took her back to the shop where I usually keep her. She ran pretty rough at first, but smoothed out after a couple of miles.

Hopefully I'll have some time for her next week.

[STODD]

Blew fire?
Sounds like timing my friend.

[TWHawk]

That's what it sounds like to a couple of people that I've bugged lately.

What I haven't determined is what excactly that means for my coach except "Don't fuck with it until you have help."

The car was running great over the weekend... Why would the timing suddenly be off?

[spastic_chicken]

there's a bolt and hold down that keeps the distributor from moving. If its loose, it'll set your timing off.

Also could be worn timing chain.

[northgahearse]

or somehow the wires got crossed as my kid found out

[tonytheskin]

Timing is my guess.....like the others said....could be dist. turned or possibly if the chain has slack if can jump a tooth or two.

[EternalCombustion]

Good safety tip would be to keep the air cleaner on while it has a tendency to belch fire.

A side note. I had a friend in high school that was priming the carb on old cutlass with a mason jar with a little gas in it. He would add a little and have a friend crank the engine. It hit and belched a fire ball, which proceeded to follow the vapor right into the jar he was holding. This then exploded sending flaming fuel on his bare chest and and right side giving him 2nd degree burns. Needless to say he never did that again.