Herb,
I had terrible problems with my old '67 Sprite, for some reason it would
just die on the road, but it only happened south of San Francisco. I lived
in Seattle at the time and drove to San Diego from time to time, and the
first time it happened was in San Diego. Later it happened more and more,
but I couldn't find the problem - replaced numerous fuel pumps, etc. The
only way I could get it to run was to bang on the fuel pump with a wrench.
The problem finally reached a climax on one brutal trip from San Diego to
Seattle - I had to get there to meet my ship but the car just didn't want to
go. It was dying frequently on the side of the road, I'd bang the fuel pump
which sometimes would work, other times I'd just sit and wait for it to
start again. It was terrible, must have stopped 30 times, but once I got
even with San Francisco, it ran perfectly all the way to Seattle. Never did
figure it out, eventually sold the car.
But then, years later, I get a '74 Midget, runs great in San Francisco where
I lived. Then had to move it to Washington, DC, when it did the dying thing
in the desert near Reno. This time I was older and wiser and figured it
might be vapor locking in the carb (don't ask my how I thought of that,
still don't know), so I started taking off things that restricted cool air
flow. First came the grill, then the air filters, then a rock got propped
under the hood to hold it open a few inches. Each of these "fixes" worked
until the altitude got higher and the carb needed more cool air, and in this
manner we limped over the mountains, at night, in the rain. Once we got
below 10,000 feet on the other side, put it all back together and it ran
great all the way to DC. My wife, 6 months pregnant at the time, was quite
happy when we made it to Washington.
Hopefully there are a couple of useful nuggets of info here. BTW, I spent
yesterday wrapping my LCB header with that tape that is supposed to keep the
heat in, this in an effort to reduce the air temps under the hood - now that
I have the single carb with the K&N, the idle drops way down if sitting in
traffic for any length of time (it gets hot down here in Alabama), but it
doesn't do it with the hood open, so I figure it's sucking very hot air from
the exhaust manifold and that is killing the idle. I'll report back on
results once I get it put back together.
Coastie Bob
'74 Midget
>>Anyone dealt with vapor lock problems, regardless of the vehicle
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