Engine died.

I went out for a short ride yesterday and after about 10 minutes I felt the engine missing a bit. I stopped at a light and the engine died and would not restart. After may attempt I held the carb wide open and it eventually started but immediately died at idol. Long story short, I managed to limp it home. I pulled the plugs which were all covered in black soot indicating way too rich or really bad spark. I put in new plugs, it fired right up, sat at idol for about 30 seconds, started running really bad and then shut off. Any ideas? I’m thinking the Mallory Unilite might have gone bad, I know they have a bad reputation. This thing was in the car when I bought it. The cap doesn’t look cracked but there is some build up on the connections. I tried taking the rotor off but it doesn’t seem to want to pull off???? Is there a trick to that?

The Unilite is a pretty dependable unit. They work or they don't. The rotor is a press fit, and needs to be pulled straight up with a fair amount of pressure. It could be your coil is overheating/failing or your carb is gummed up. Run it with the filter off, and make sure the choke plate isn't falling shut during idle. I had the bi-metal spring in an electric choke fail, and the choke plate would fall shut at idle, then open by vacuum as the revs came up.

What kind of carb do you have?

Bob
tufcj

Edited by tufcj - Jul/25/2016 at 4:35pm

The carb is a Holley 650 electric choke. The choke is not closed.

shootist wrote: Check the new plugs see if they look fouled. It is possible you picked up trash in the fuel bowl and it is flooding. If the contacts on the cap and rotor look bad that could also be an issue. The button should just lift off but that depends on the distributor as well.

I pulled a plug and it looks fine, of course the engine only ran for maybe 30 seconds.

Fuel filter?