I was cruising the other day and my car just lost power. The engine can start and run, but will die if I let it idle. It will die as soon as I let the cluch out. The recent fix's I've performed is a timing adjustment and I replaced a broken pushrod on #2 intake. After that, the car ran like a champ until now. I'm going to check the pushrods as that was the last thing I messed with, but I'd like more advice from the /6 elite. About the car, 69 Charger original /6 with 3 on tree. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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69'Charger /6

not sure of being part of any elite, but... here I go:

broken dist springs (bad mech advance going full on at any speed)

is every cyl firing?

fuel tank/lines situation? maybe you have a clogged carb due to gunk

as you mentioned, some other pushrods? but to kill the engine it would have to be like more than 2 cyls.... any slant will hold up with 5 (even with 4 depending on the mill) cyls.

what did you do with the timing? (I mean, do you know wich governor you have in that distributer? initial timing? vac pod? points or electronic? etc)

did you lash them valves? (assuming yes since you went in there, so never mind)

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Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

The Distributor has points, but I'm not too keen on it's internals. Unfortunately, I only know the basics. (The ironic thing is that I'm solid with brakes, but I hate working on them, lol) I had plans to upgrade to an Electronic Ignition, but simply haven't done it yet. As I was looking things over yesterday, it got dark, so I had to close up shop early. The last thing I did with the timing was reset it back to around 5 degrees ATDC. I'll check the timing when I look things over again today and post anything that I find... Thanks for posting.

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69'Charger /6

Not much to go on, yet, but could it be your fuel pick-up filter sock is getting clogged up. Did you check for good fuel delivery to the carb? Give us a few more clues.

Jerry

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There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

The initial timing should be in the 5-10 degrees BTDC (Before TDC, Not After TDC)
You are on the right track, recheck your recent work, it could be that the distributor simply "moved" and now the timing is way off.
DD

Does it idle high? Could be just a bad vaccum line. Weak spark, maybe?

I second DD's suggestion of timing. 5 to 10º BTDC should do it if nothing else's causing this. I never heard any good things of slanters running poor initial advance (let alone initial retard)... maybe you didn't tighten the locking nut enough and the dist walked its way out of your initial setting.

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Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

You could have one of those dreaded nylon silent chain timing chain kits. If the nylon ring lets loose, you will have your ignition timing shift on you, run pretty crappy, and basically be undrivable.

Mike
www.PowreHaus.com

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Recognized by US Federal Courts as a Fuel Economy Expert!

I'd take everyone's suggestions and check the easy stuff first (fuel filter, distributor, etc) but it sounds a lot like jumped time to me.

My father had a /6 Dart Sport that did that on the freeway - just cruising along at 65 or so, and all of a sudden loss of power and terrible backfiring out the exhaust. Was the nylon timing gears. No harm done; replaced the timing chain and it was back on the road again. Motor probably had around 150k miles at that incident (it ultimately accumulated around 300k!)

I had a 318 Dart that jumped time, too - it was really easy to diagnose. I drove it to a work site, parked it worked. When I got done, the car started and drove about 50 feet and then just ran like crap and died. It would restart, but die under load. Did this 2 or three times, then nothing. I had someone crank it, and with the air breather off, I noticed it was blowing air OUT of the carburetor! It must've jumped time more than once. When i tore it down later, all 8 pistons had valve dents in them. That motor had around 85k when it died.

Don't forget to check the plastic distributor gear too. Also, I have had coils fail that act like this.

Well, thanks for all of the feedback. After checking all that was mentioned, I checked the fuel filter. It was full of garbage. Again, due to the sudden loss of power, I didn't think the %^&* fuel filter would be the issue. Once I cleaned it out, the beast fired right up. Again, thanks for the comments.

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69'Charger /6

Ahhh. Just gotta love the old slant six. It wasn't the 02 sensor, it wasn't the magnetic pickup on the crank, it wasn't the computer, it wasn't the main relay, it wasn't clogged injectors - just a gummed up fuel filter.

My 318 Satellite did a similar thing, only it wouldn't even re-start. And one of the valve heads was embedded edge-ways in the top of a piston when we pulled the head I was lucky it didn't knock the top out of the combustion chamber casting.

That was at 190,000 miles, 2 weeks before I was going to start college in the fall of 1982. I had to suffer the indignity of driving my mother's Mercury Comet to college for a couple of months while the 318 got a rebuild. Nearly scarred me for life!

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