Thanks to several of you on the list (Charlie B., Trevor B., and Roger B.)
and a lot of fiddling (new sport coil, new ignition wires, new fuel
filter, cleaned fuel lines, a bit of rewiring around the coil to include
the ballast and drive resistors which the dpo had bypassed, and TWO
CARB REBUILDS) . . . . my 1980 Spit is back on the road again,
better than ever! There were lots of little problems, but the big one--
the one that kept shutting me down on hills--was (it seems so obvious now)
the floats and valve in the carb. When I did the rebuild for the first
time I noticed that there was a little bit of bend in the float arm which
contacted the valve, but I figured it was as it should be. When I put
the new valve in I used the two gaskets enclosed (aluminum and fiber)
even though there had been only the aluminum one before. I knew I was
making the valve stick out a little further and that it would contact
the float arm when it was lower in the bowl, but it looked as if there
was a lot of room for play and that it wouldn't matter. Finally,
after attacking all other possibilities, I got back into the carb and
looking carefully, I could see that there is very little room for error
after all. I straightened the arm on the floats and took out the fiber
gasket and . . . . . SUCCESS!! It idles rock steady at about 800 rpm
and takes the hills with no sweat.
Looks like its time to put John Fogerty on loud and head up to the
Blue Ridge Parkway.
Put me in coach,
I'm ready to play,
Todaaaay.
Thanks a bunch,
Tim Gaines
Clinton, SC
1980 Spit
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