i own an 82 ram150 slant6. about a year and a half ago the timing chain jumped. i let the truck sit for a year then had it fixed. it barely ran after that and they said it was probably the gas because it sat in there for a year. i've ran many tanks since and it still ran bad. i turned the distributer all the way to the left(counter clockwise) and it runs a little better. i'm getting 3 miles a gallon worse since the timing jumped. anybody know what might be the problem?

need more info...is it a lean burn ignition? does crank hard or "too easy"? when you redid the timing chain, were you 100% on the crank/cam alignment? it should be a hydraulic valvetrain, but if not did you check valve lash?

lots of things it could be....how does it idle?

sb

it is a lean burn and it does crank over a little easier now. i had the timing chain put in at a shop. when i first start it it runs very rough and after a minute or so it starts to run better.

Dis any pistons or valves get damaged when the chain jumped? Do you trust the shop to have put the chain on correctly (line up the dots and double check it with a degree wheel)?

does the computer on the aircleaner have anything to do with it or maybe the distributer might be bad. my dad's known the guys at the shop for many years and i do trust them but i also thought from the start that the chain might be off a little. hey Reed, i live in puyallup and i'm (86ed on the vannin website)

Hi! Glad to see you made it over here. You won't regret it.

If your truck has a computer on the air cleaner then you have the lean-burn or spark control computer. Your poor gas mileage could be due to a badly mistimed timing set, but most likely one or several components of the lean burn system have failed. I would start with the basicd. Do a full tune-up including replacing the 02 sensor if equipped and all the filters. If that doesn't fix it I would make sure the vacuum pod on the computer still holds a vacuum (just suck on the hose to see) then start looking fro vacuum leaks. If you can't find any vacuum leaks I would try a carb rebuild.

It is also worth it to check things like the connection and proper sequence of the plug wires too.

If you are feeling more adventurous and have a little more money to spend on the truck, I highly recommend dumping the lean burn system and switching to the HEI ignition setup. This will also require you to get a non-computerized carb and a normal electronic ignition distributor.

i agree with Reed, go through the basics. put a timing light on it and see if the timing wanders erratically at idle. that is a sure sign of lean burnitis. it would be best to dump the lean burn IMHO....

here's what i did to get rid of lean burn on my 1982 D150:

JY shopped for a dizzy, but couldn't find an electronic one. SO i put in the only one i could find, a points distributor. $8 and ran it just like it came out of the JY for about 4 months. i averaged about 20mpg.

last week, i pulled the dizzy, pulled the govenor, welded up the slots, filed the points, set the gap on the points. i set the timing @ 12* initial, it has 28* total, all in by 2500rpms. i won't be getting 20mpg this tank, because its too fun to stomp on the gas and zip around....for a while.
I'm not saying you should convert to points, but my situation, it worked out well and the price was right.
ultimately the electronic is the better way to go, especially if you use the HEI module

http://duster318.freeservers.com/tech/4-pin_s.jpg

there are also posts on here about doing it, just search under HEI. SSDan has a good write up on it. the only real trick to it is finding the ONE constant 12V wire...should be Dark Blue...and the rest is pretty straightforward no matter which one you choose. keep us posted.

sb

On my 86 Dodge van I have delected the lean burn computer and gone with HEI. I powered the HEI off of the (+) coil lead, grounded the HEI body to the aluminium arm that used to hold the wire for the O2 sensor, attached the (-) HEI lead to the coil, and plugged the other leads into the dist. Simple, clean, installed in under ten minutes. A lean burn system usually doesn't have a ballast resistor to bypass either.

i bought an air cleaner with the computer attached this weekend for $10 at a mopar car show and now the truck runs great. thanks for the info guys, i'm gonna keep in mind options on the hei setup.