Solution to an old stalling problem

[Frank's 49]

 

This story relates to a problem my Dad, Frank Reeber, had shortly after he purchased Old Betsy, a 1949 Highlander Woody Wagon.  Dad owned a paper route serving New Milford, Oradell, and Harworth, New Jersey (back in those days a newspaper "route" was a protected business territory and was owned, it could be bought and sold like any business).  

 

He had been using the truck for about 3 months when it starting a stalling problem.  Operation would be normal, and then suddenly the engine would quit running.  After a few moments, it could be restarted and all would be well.. until it stalled again.  The time between stalls could be few minutes, hours, sometimes he would do the whole route with no problem.

 

A return to the dealer led to suspicion of an electrical problem, because it was so random, and sudden in nature.  In those days the actual warranty, was basically "we guarantee that you own the car", so only the fact that Dad was a friend caused the dealer to spend much time working on the problem. 

 

And work on it they did.  Since the problem was random, the mechanic had to try a fix and wait for Dad to report success, or more stalling.  They tried lots of things, coil wire, points, rotor, checking grounds, checking ignition switch/wiring for loose wires.  Each of these involved taking the car and driving it.. until the next stall.  No luck.  Changed out the fuel pump.  No luck.  Swapped out the carb..  no luck.  

 

This went on for several weeks and Dad (and the mechanic) were getting pretty frustrated.  Finally the mechanic said, "I'm going to remove the gas tank and check out. I have tried everything else and am basically stumped.  i don't know what else to look at.".  Lo and behold, the gas tank contained a half-handful of small pea-sized unripe  grapes!!  The grapes, when placed in a pan of gasoline, had neutral specific gravity, ie. they would just sort of slosh around, neither floating nor remaining on the bottom.  

 

When the car was running and being driven around,  grapes would wander around until one drifted close enough to the outlet to be gripped by suction,  and then would  block the flow of gasoline to the fuel line.  Presto.  Stalled engine.  Engine stalled, no suction on the gas line, so the grape is washed away, gas can flow, and the car starts and runs fine.  Until the next grape is trapped.  

 

After the laughter stopped,  Dad installed a locking gas cap, and it is still on the car.  No more problems. 

 

If your car starts to have a stalling problem you will know what to do.

 

Mike 

 

[Merle Coggins]

Interesting story. Years ago I had a customer with a wheel loader with a similar stalling problem. It would just shut down at random. I went through everything I could think of in the electrical and fuel system. One day when I was busy on another machine they called again and another tech was sent out to investigate. We spoke about it so that he knew the history. After double checking my work he dropped the fuel tank. There was an acorn in the tank that had sunk to the bottom, just inside the baffle ring that circles the pick up tube. It would swirl around and get sucked up on the pipe, engine would die, suction was lost on the fuel pipe, engine would restart without issue, and it would run again until the acorn found the pipe again. It could go 3 min, 30 min, 3 hours, etc. I couldn't believe it when he told me.

 

Merle

[Don Coatney]

I also had a similar problem. I had a Ford Cab Over truck with a low temp ice cream box that I used to deliver to ice cream to public schools. Problem developed where the engine would just quit running and not re-start for a period of time. After many attempts to find and fix the problem finally pulled the gas tank. Found some school kid had stuffed a bunch of paper in the tank.

[JBNeal]

from allll the Law & Order I've watched over the years, I'm wondering if the school kid made the mistake of signing his work...?

[Merle Coggins]

Don's story reminded me of another fuel starvation issue. I had a customer with an articulated haul truck (off road dump truck) that would loose power. It would run good without a load, but once under a heavy load it would begin to bog down like it was starved for fuel. I believe someone had diagnosed it as bad injectors and had replaced them before I worked on it. Of course the injectors didn't fix the problem. After many tests I finally decided to pull out the tank unit (level sender, pickup, and return pipes all in one unit). I couldn't pull it up out of the fuel tank. There was so much rag wrapped around the pick up screen that it wouldn't come through the hole. After a lot of time spent cutting away little bits of the rag wrap, through the hole, I finally got it out. As it turns out the fuel cap had been lost and someone had been plugging the hole with rags, mostly old cut up sweatshirts. When one would fall into the tank they would use another one. To add to the issue the fuel cap for this machine has a small chain attached to the bottom with a spring clip at the bottom. The spring clip goes down into the fill pipe and opens up into the tank like a "T", then the chain keeps the cap from getting lost. When you remove the cap you can let it hang by the chain as you fuel up the machine. Well, apparently this machine had lost a few caps as there were 3 or 4 of the keeper chains also wrapped up within the rag wrap. It was a real mess to clean up. I spent a couple more hours fishing around in the tank for more rag pieces to remove the risk of a repeat failure. It wasn't a fun job. I hate smelling like diesel fuel all day.

[whtbaron]

Similar story with the Chrysler slant six in a John Deere swather. In my case it was a BB of solder rolling around in the tank from it's original construction. Took me a while to figure it out too. It would just roll around until it finally got sucked into the fuel outlet. Once the engine died it was free to roll away again.

[1950 Special Deluxe]

These are great stories.

Sometimes, it is the last thing you would ever think of.

Thanks for posting these stories.

They are a great read.

[Don Coatney]

[Plymouthy Adams]

Don Coatney and the Molotov Special   

[FargoMarty]

I had the same issue as whtbaron with an old Holden. Car would run fine nearly all the time but on long uphill runs it'd starve of fuel and die. Letting it sit for a few minutes would result in it starting and driving normally, until the next time. It turned out the culprit was in the fuel tank. When I'd sealed the sender unit a small ball of gasket sealant had formed on the end of the thread of one of the bolts that held down the sender unit and float assembly. Over time the gasket sealer hardened, dropped off the end of the thread, rolled around the tank and would get sucked up the pickup pipe where suction would hold it in place until it starved the fuel supply. The suction stopped when the fuel pump stopped, and it would roll back down into the tank, waiting for the next time. Took a long time to find that one...

[ggdad1951]

we had a Cessna 182 on climb to jump altitude sputter and stop....needless to say the pilot said "GET OUT" so we did!  He landed safely...we found a RUBBER MALLET in the fuel tank from a recent repair!

[Frank's 49]

Geeze!  At least Dad never had to bail out!!  Just coast to a stop, and there was a lot less traffic around in 1949. 

[FargoMarty]

ggdad, you win!! 

[whtbaron]

ggdad, you win!! 

 

Well yea... but I'd have a tough time jumping out of a perfectly good airplane!

[ggdad1951]

Well yea... but I'd have a tough time jumping out of a perfectly good airplane!

show me one...

[Don Coatney]

show me one...

They are all good while on the ground.