My mighty max has been giving me some issues I thought I had figured out. Now I have a new/old issue that just showed its ugly head again. The truck is intermittently loosing power when I approach hills or depress the gas peddle past 1/4. Sometimes its fine and other times it will not go over 30MPH

It will begin to loose power very badly and then bucks and sputters and will not go over 45 on flat ground and about 20 on a hill. This issue comes and goes and I have put a lot of dry gas in it thinking water in fuel. No help! It idles perfectly so you do not know you have an issue until you start driving.

I thought I had a short or an open circuit because I had issues with the fuse panel and the interior light and clock and radio shorting out and noticed that the truck shortly after these things would happen would start to run bad. It was not immediately after but within a few hours. It may be just coincidence but it is worth noting.

Last night I filled the truck with fuel and the mileage began to drop like crazy again and it started to sputter again and had extreme loss of power. I have noticed when I fill the tank all the way up I have had this problem each time. Maybe coincidence.

Also if I try to put any extra gas in the truck after the pump pops it will run out on the ground. You also can smell gas outside the truck after a fill up. Everything looks tight but something in the fill tube leaks if you try to put an extra gallon in it once the gas pump clicks. I now just round it off to the nearest dollar and stop.

Like I said I thought my fuse panel being corroded real bad was the issue and I fixed it all and got the light and clock and radio all working great. After I did that the sputtering loss of power went away but it still got real bad MPG. Something around 9 or 10MPG.

Then today for some reason it has began sputtering and getting about 7mpg and has extreme loss of power. When driving around town all seems fine. You try to go over 45 and it shows up.

I looked thru the archives here and found no real solution to this kind of an issue. Any ideas?

On a side note I am not sure how the front differential works but I may have my passenger side front 4x4 staying engaged. The truck pulls very hard to the right. Very hard! If you engage the 4x4 it stops. Take it out of 4x4 and it pulls like crazy to the right. Weird or what?

I want to get this truck running well but I may have to torch it if all this keeps up and I cant figure this stuff out without spending 3000 bucks to do so. The truck is not worth to much money being dumped into it even though it is pretty much rust free.

Any ideas or help on this one? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Maybe bowl vent valve failure? There is a vent line from the bowl of the carb to the canister. Plug that and report back.

^^ This. Same issues on my own 2.6L truck and the bowl vent valve needed to be plugged. I stuck an old drill bit in mine ad secured it with a zip tie. Been like that a few thousand miles now. Went from hardly running, sputtering, thought it was a bad fuel filter, to smooth and relatively powerful.

When you say from float bowl to canister are you talking about the charcoal canister for smog?

No. It's a part of the carburetor. Somewhat common fault for sudden power loss with the 2.6 engines.

Despite the previous post saying no, YES. From the charcoal canister there is a metal pipe that attaches to a rubber hose that attaches to the carb. Detach the rubber hose from the pipe, and plug the hose.

I will plug it and see if this intermittent issue goes away.

Its odd that this happens each time I fill the tank up all the way. If I put 20 bucks in this never happens. If I fill it up it will happen and does so when fuel gauge reaches 3/4's of a tank each time. Its happened 4 times so I cant say I have a pattern. Maybe just a coincidence.

This last time it happened it did not sputter and buck like the other 3 times. This time it just had a huge loss of power. This truck is pissing me off because it did this in KY on my way home with it from my dads in TN. I had to abandon it and then return 10 days later and tow it home. luckily it had a tow bar bracket and I was able to tow it behind another truck to get it home. Unbelievably when I got it home it ran just fine like it never had a problem. I was soooo angry.

I will plug the line and report back. Unfortunately it may be a week or 2 before I have a chance to get to the truck to work on it. The weather here in MI is ridiculous and we have 2.5 feet of snow on the ground and the temperature is to cold to work on a vehicle.

Normally I would work on it in my garage but my daughters Mustang that I restored is in the garage and it will not even drive out of the garage at idle speed on this snow and ice. The wheels spin so badly that its stuck in the garage until the weather breaks a little. I had to have 3 people push it in the garage do to all the ice under the snow robbing it of traction. Useless Ford!

Will report back findings as soon as I can. I do very much appreciate all your help folks.

I am also going to run a vacuum test on the depression chamber on the carb. It appears it is also a common issue of note for this kind of symptom. Hopefully it is one of the two.

By they way there is a metal box on the driver side fender that has some vacuum pumps in it. I think it is for smog in places like California? Do I even need that thing or can I remove it? I a not concerned about smog at all with this little truck because we have not test here in MI. Its not my daily driver or my Sunday go to meeting truck so smog is of no concern. For now I just want it to run as well as it can and get the best fuel economy it can.

Also I have question that may seem odd. Do any of you think a 2.0 liter diesel engine out of a 87 Escort would work in this truck if I ever tried to swap motors? I have 2 of those 2.0L engines. I think its a Mazda motor. Ford put them in the escort for a few years.

Maybe I will start a new topic and get peoples opinion.

Ok I unplugged the rubber line from the canister and plugged the line off and it made no difference except it started running rough after a few miles when I was at idle. I took the bolt out and it smoothed right out so I plugged it back in to the canister.


Note that today I had extreme power loss again and noticed at the same time that my heater is only blowing cool air.

Each time I have had an issue with this is when I fill it up all the way and it is very cold outside. The heater blowing warm air instead of real hot is new as of today or at least its the 1st time I noticed it. I usually have it set to blow at the floor but I switched it today and discovered its not real hot.

If it is real cold out and the stat is stuck open would it cause an issue in the carb because the antifreeze running thru it is not hot enough or at the proper running temp? Could coolant that's not hot enough cause a malfunction in the temp sensor and in turn cause the carb to run rich?

Absolutely.

John B.

Have you ever had a stat intermittently malfunction? Every time I have had one go out it is bad or not bad and no in between.

I do know when it is real cold out that the truck does not seem to keep me quite warm enough. I just thought it was do to the crappy cab with air leaks everywhere. Now that I think of it my feet have been getting cool even when the truck is warmed up. I usually keep it on my feet so it never clicked that it was not working just right.

I have also noticed that when the truck 1st warms up that the temp gauge will rise past 3/4. On several occasions I have kept an eye on it because I thought it would over heat. Then once the stat would finally open it would drop and stay just below half or right at the half way mark from then on. It only does that when its cold and cycles for the 1st time.

What do you guys see your temp gauge running at most of the time? In your old air leaking cabs does the heater roast you out or does it barley keep you warm when its real cold?

What controls the amount of heat running thru the carb other than the main engine coolant stat?

I have read thru the manual on the cooling system and the Carb and I do not see where the antifreeze runs thru the carb anywhere but I have been told it does. Do any of you know where this is at on the carb or it function if it in fact does have coolant running thru it?

I also noted in the manual that the carb has a Intake air temperature control system and a Thermo valve. If either of these are malfunctioning what would the symptom be exactly?

Also how are they controlled exactly. How does coolant affect this carb in any way or any of its components? If the engine temp is not registering hot enough could it actuate the choke causing it to load up and act as if its getting to much gas or could something else actuate like the thermo valve or the intake temp control telling the carb to allow more gas than is actually required? I have 7MPG fuel economy and cant run down the exact cause and I am desperate.

To many problem and to few answers. I wish I could throw a lawn mower carb on this thing because I know those like the back of my hand. Small engines are easy this one is not. lol <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />