VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 54 grief

got a 54 belair powerglide car with 41000 miles on it. when i purchased the car in 03 i rebuilt the rochester bc carb. myself. upon dissasembly i noticed the bore for the accelerator pump had slight groves worn in it, horizontally, not vertically. i also had the tank sealed replaced fuel lines and fuel pump. ive since replaced the points with a petronics 6 volt electronic ignition and a hotter coil. that is the only modification to the car. this year i noticed a low speed miss, call it a flat spot especially when the car warms up. the car sat all winter, was starting to screw up in the fall. i have 20 inches of vacume at the port on the intake manifold, the external advance seems to be working, i dont think i have any vacume leaks. i have removed the carb. and am reconsidering a professional rebuild, thinking the sorce is in the carb. the plugs are sooty-i run r45 ac plugs. any advice from the masses would be helpful, thanks bill pearson

Homer, sooty plugs tend to indicate an over fueling problem or on the other side of the coin an air starvation problem. I would first have a look at your float level setting. If too high or sticking open, would cause your low speed misfire or poor combustion due to engine over fueling.

I also know of two owners that could not get their 53-54 to run correctly with the Petronix ign. system.Took it out and ran fine.

Also check the heat riser.Must be "free" for a good warm up......and the vacuum power piston in the carb..they tend to stick in the rich position.

unless the petronics system is slowly breaking down, it worked perfectly during the last season, though i noticed a slight miss before i put it up. as for the carb, sounds like thats the culprit?, right?. took it off this evening, flipped it over to get gas out, some crud in the gas, thinking thats it.sound right/

The accellerator pump and the pump circuit in the carb. should be cleaned.The ball in the pump should rattle when you shake it.That was/is a problem with the Rochester carb.You can buy a fresh kit from NAPA for about $15.00.

Yeah, you may want to install an inline filter before the fuel line gets to the carb inlet I use an AC disposable job and change it at every 2nd oil change , sooner if you have crud in the tank. There are the original AC glass bowl fuel filters that use a modern paper type filter element. I have several that are Wix. I never thought much of them but they do catch some water if installed correctly.

thanks everybody, think im going to go over the carb, hopefully the electronic ignition works out o.k., trouble is this is the first car ive owned that came with points, dwell all that stuff, never played with it. im 45 yrs old. my dad died last year and i found a vacume guage in his house, along with a 6 volt timing light. does it seem nuts to set timing with the vacume guage, seems when im at 20 inches vacume alls great with the world. this is a good old car, my kids love it, its a 4 door, not perfect, but a solid driver. my 63 nova ss i am a little more careful wher i take it. HEY CHEV NUT, what happened with those friends who used petronics, did they break down, or were they never right?. i also put a set in my nova, no problems yet?

They never put it back in.I have it in my Corvair as do many Corvair owners and it works fine.May be the 6 volt system in the older cars.

Don't worry about the point dwell.Just set with feeler gauge at full point opening as per manual.There not fussy.

Get a good 12v timing light and use a 12v battery for the power source. The 6v light only works well if it is midnite and the hood is down, and all lights in the area are off.