VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1933-1936 33 coupe belching soot

Rock Valley Antique Auto Parts will build a 33 tank.
http://www.rockvalleyantiqueautoparts.com/catalog.htm

No, 70 lbs. is good enough. Remember that from my Grandfather and my Dad. Below that you will have to do something. The main thing is to have them read all the same within 10 lbs. Remember that this is not a high compression engine! 90 lbs. is top reading as far as I am concerned. While you are at the bottom of this you are still good. If you have one that reads 45 or 50 lbs. or less; then that is the one you want to look at. It is the odd reading that you are looking for. From what you have said, I would look elsewhere for your problem. Rings are good.

An engine running that "RICH" almost undoubtly had a carburetor problem.
It also will have a crankcase full of gas.

Thanks. I can't wait to get the tank back in this weekend. It has been off the road too long

I am sure that you are going to have it fixed; what with the new-rebuilt carb and new gas tank. I wish you good luck. I hope you let us know how it went this weekend!

Well, just started the car after I:
flushed, rust proofed and sealed the tank,
flushed the fuel line and installed new fuel filter,
installed rebuilt carb,
installed new muffler,
drained and changed oil. It was black as coal and the consistency of water,
converted to 12 volts
installed electronic ignition and new wires.

The car is running terribly rough, smoking and won't idle at low rpm. Tried setting the timing but the car is running so poorly it was a fruitless exercise.

Tomorrow I will pull off the valve cover and possibly the side cover. Something must be broken inside. It may be time for an engine rebuild.

Back to the drawing board.

Check the valve springs for breakage.
Did you ever do a compression test?

Consistent 70 lbs in all cylinders. Just pulled the valve cover. Valve springs fine and push rods appear good. Will have to pull side cover tomorrow. However, I am thinking it is an electrical issue. I may put the points and condenser back in as I could have a bad electronic ignition module. I checked to be sure all plug wires are correctly installed and rotor looks good and no obvious cracks in distributor cap. I have a new coil and wires and I cleaned the plugs. It starts fine. It really runs like a problem in the ignition

Stay with the standard points system and you will be better off. The electronic ignition tends to cause issues.

I have the original ignition, too. Sometimes those new fangled so called "improvements" can cause all sorts of problems.

Have you set your carb? Carefully and lightly screw the one adjusting screw in all the way. Just seat it very lightly all the way in. Then back off one and one half turns. (Some 1/4 turn from there one way or the other to get max gas milage.)

Does it make any difference in the smoke?

Thanks Terrill. Had to work on my son's truck this weekend but I did just pull the electronic ignition and will reinstall the points and condenser this week. I really think, and hope the Petronix ignition is the problem. I solved my problem with burning up points (got stuck a few times) when the guys on this forum diagnosed a bad coil. I really should have left it at that and not installed the electronic ignition.

We shall see. I will keep you posted.

I installed Petronix in one of my cars and it lasted one week before it failed and left me stranded in the middle of traffic downtown on a Friday late afternoon.



I totally agree!

I just started the car and backed it out of the garage for the first time in about a year. Problem solved. As the Junkyard Dog suggested, I have a Defective Petronix Electronic Ignition Module. I re-installed the points and condenser and all is good. I did not get the car to running temp, but it does have a miss and when I put the air filter on, the engine stalled. I hate to mess with the carb adjustments but I will at least up the idle speed. Not sure why it is missing, but I set the points using the hand crank. I will get a timing light and tach on it tomorrow, but the missing is likely something else.

Thanks

I am not surprised that the Petronix is defective.

Jolo
Quite often the air filter will cause a slightly enriched mixture. With air cleaner fitted increase the idle speed slightly then adjust the mixture screw in (lean) until the engine stumbles the richen about 3/4 turn. After the mixture adjust then readjust the idle speed.
Tony

Thanks Tony, I will give that a shot. I hope that evens out the idle and missing. Since part of my problem was a bad carb (the other, the Petronix), should I be careful with my selection of fuel? Should I use ethanol free marine 87 octane, or should I use premium or an additive? Also, when not driven for a while, should I continue using Sta-bil in the tank? I don't want to ruin another carb. Thanks

Ethanol is some bad crap. Use Ethanol free gas if you can and no additives are needed in the gas. When your car is parked for a period of time ad some Sta-Bil to preserve the gas while the car is sitting.

Thanks, that is what I thought. I suspect newer cars are better equipped to deal with the corrosive impact of ethanol. I can get marine ethanol-free 87 octane locally, so I will use it whenever I can.

Great! You will be better off using the Ethanol free gas whenever you can.

Anything ethanol free is the better but 91 or 95 will be better again. Down here we can get 98 octane but I have found with my vehicles 98 makes little difference except in my wallet.
Tony

A 1933 was a very low compression ratio engine and designed to run on 50 octane gas. Todays 87 is much more than required and running a higher octane gas can actually be deteramintal. The higher the octane the slower the gas burns.

On that miss...after the engine is warmed up to "normal"; have you tried pulling the choke all the way out until the engine dies and then shove it back in.... in time to let it continue to run; several times? This may clear some crud that is in there out. I have used this to clear my car and truck both. I agree on using non ethanol gas. (But if this is all you can get then I use an additive that removes water.) Our modern gas is way to "hot". You might find that using 89 octaine (non ethanol) will cause you to have to set the spark into an advanced position. I think that the higher the octaine the more advance is needed.

Adjusted the carb but the car is still running rough and smoking and chokes out with the air cleaner on. Guess I need to do a leak down test this weekend?

Spray wd-40 around the bottom of the carb and on that thick black gasket. See if it stops. If so you have loose carb nuts!

With the amount of smoke and fumes coming through the vent tube and the rocker cover vents, I think I have some blow by and possibly bad rings. The car had been running fine after I replaced the coil, then suddenly started acting up with the black exhaust smoke, which prompted the carb rebuild. There are no noises coming from the engine. I guess the Octane Selector changes the Vacuum Advance. Mine is set to zero. I have 33 and 34 repair manuals and I cannot find anything on how that should be adjusted. I have found some threads on this forum for the Octane Selector that will likely shed some light on the proper setting for this.

I am hoping this is not engine trouble. It has 87,000 original miles.