hello sages- since my 2 year project(almost done) 80 volare wagon has been wasted by an inattentive driver i am resurrecting the feather duster which has been sitting in the back of my garage for 3years with only occassional starts. fired it up yesterday with fresh gas(tank evaporated dry), good battery and some ether. however its doing something it never did before probably from its long sit. the engine starts and runs smoothly for 5 minutes and then it shuts off and is veryhard starting but fires.next after it sits over night it fires right up and runs well for another 5 minutes. have 3 theories but would like to hear the wisdom of uncle dan and others who are wiser than me. 1st- suspect the dual ballast resistor. it does get hot. isnt this the behavior of a bad resistor(will start but wont run very long?). 2d- marginal fuel pump- doubt it since the car does start and run well for 5minutes. 3d- clogged fuel line or fuel filter or dirt in carb- not likely since again it does run well for a few minutes. will disconnect fuel filter and try to pump a good flow of gas into a receptacle and replace the filter which shouldeliminate fuel line suspicions after i swap in a substitute resistor. moe suspects the coil but a bad coil to my knowledge doesnt act like this. most looking forward to counsel and shortcuts from my fellow slanters. this is the first time in 35 years i have been without a working slant so i have to get the feather rolling fast. thanks tons my friends. bob fisher

About 20 years ago I had a 66 Ford pickup that did something similar.

After much speculation and a variety of "fixes" it turned out to be a piece of garbage in the fuel tank that, due to it's size and shape, would sort of hang out near the fuel line exit point.

The suction from the pump would pull it over the opening and kill the engine after a while. Then, when the engine was not running, the lack of suction would let it drift far enough away that enough gas would get through to partially fill the fuel line...enough to allow the engine to run for a short time before it puked.

My clues were the following:

- Before the engine died, it would sputter like it was running out of gas.
- After one of the puking sessions, I pulled the filter off of the fuel line and noticed that very little gas was getting through. I blew hard in the fuel line and then got a strong rush of fuel through the line before it then subsided again.

So...removed and cleaned the tank and that did it. I even found what I suspect was the specific offending piece of garbage.

Another similarity to your situation is that the 66 sat for a few years before I got it back on the road....the sitting period is probably when the tank got nasty.

This may or may not be your problem, but it may give you some food for thought.

Thanks,
Don

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1954 Ford, Tudor Mainline
1976 Plymouth Valiant, 4 door


www.automotive-ninja.com

I'd almost think carb problem...sounds like carb with choke on starts and runs fine... 5 minutes later choke pulls off and leans out and dies (idle circuit plugged a bit with varnish?)...

Have you watched the carb over the minutes outside the car pietin off?

I had a buddy with this problem...pulled the pietin on first fire up and the float had sunk on the Holley 1920 and the excess gas was running out the vent tubes into the carb body...I always wonder why the rings hadn't washed out after the first month of him driving it like that...

I'm voting lean/carb cleanout/varnish...

-D.Idiot