I ran into a little problem with my Valiant and I'm not exactly an expert so before I start replacing parts I wanted to maybe get some opinions as to whether my diagnosis is correct ...

My car stalled in the middle of the street a few days ago. Before that i had noticed that the engine was spinning a little rough, regardless of whether it was in idle or all the way up to 80 mph. Kind of a sputtering feeling.

After the car stalled, it cranked just fine, but the engine still wouldn't start so I was thinking it might be something in the fuel line. So I disconnected the tube after the fuel-filter and cranked and pumped a bit, but the fuel was coming out just fine, so I'm thinking it's not anything in the fuel line.

That leaves the air cleaner and the carburetor, right? So I took the lid off the air cleaner, same problem. So now I'm thinking it's the carburetor. Does this sound like an accurate diagnosis? If so, do you guys think there is any small quick fix I can do? I was thinking about switching out to EFI in the future. Maybe I should just go ahead and do it now?

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64 Valiant 225, 3-on-the-tree, no a/c, no heater, no radio

I'm kinda leaning toward an ignition problem. It could be your coil was weak, causing a rough running condition, and it finally died on you. I would check there first, and throw a new ballast resister at it.

I just changed my ballast resistor about a year ago and I was told that it should last me another 500,000 miles, so I don't know if I should get a new ballast resistor. Would you happen to have any pointers as to how I can test the ignition coil?

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64 Valiant 225, 3-on-the-tree, no a/c, no heater, no radio

New ignition coils for our car are only about $10 bucks at any local auto store.

It definetly sounds like ignition, either coil or distributor. They sell these little $3 testers at Autozone, etc... that go on the end of on of your plug wires and will show spark when you crank. If no spark, coil or distributor probably bad.

Tim

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My Swinger gets the Highlight Valet Parking spot over the German sports cars on the Sunset Strip. I love my Mopar.

Ballast resistors may last the life of your car or 2 days....

It is a cheap check, and if it turns out not to be the problem, you have a spare for when it does decide to go and you are not stuck on the side of the road

The only things an engine needs to run are compression, fuel/air, and spark. Sounds like you have eliminated fuel/air (unless it will start after pouring a capful of gas down the carb), so compression and spark are all that remain.

Short of more information (compression #'s and are you getting spark), I would suspect the coil or distributor if the ballast resistor is not the problem.

-S/6

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The "Silver Bullet"
87 Ram D150

points, cap and rotor are a cheap check also, I've had similiar issues from the points, especially

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STEALTH DART
disappears at dusk!