got my little datsun "running" again today. it was really struggling at first and only seemed like it was running on one carburator (3 cylinders). i kept it going and it seemed to finally clear the other carb. since i had no tools at the house i decided to drive it over to my shop, about 2 miles away.

see where this is going?

anyway, once it cleared i thought everything should be pretty good since i had it tuned before i parked it a couple months ago. i figure i just blow the carbs out and i'm golden. right? right.

i made the first mile sorta o.k. and then it started to just run flat. i had the pedal floored but i kept slowing down. finally it just stalled. i restarted it and made another 100 feet before it died. this went on for the next 1/2 mile or so. getting progressively worse. i couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with it so <here goes the shooting myself in the foot part> it seemed that it might be running too lean. so i fattened up the carbs. that didn't work so maybe it was actually running to rich, so i leaned them out. maybe carb timing is off so i started tweeking the idle mix screws.

i finally got it just across the street from my shop. i figured at this point, maybe i was actually out of gas because i could get it to run for just a few seconds and then it would just die. i didn't think i was out of gas as it still showed above 'E' on the gauge, but gauges have been wrong before. maybe i was sucking the bowls dry. so i walk across the street and grab my service truck, throw a can in the back and grab a couple gallons of gas.

i put the gas in and i'll be dammed but it's still not running right. so WTF?

then i think maybe, just maybe, there's something else making it look like it's running out of gas. i pull the fuel filter off and i'll be a jack@zz if the sumbich isn't dang near completely blocked.

i didn't have a spare but i did have some brake cleaner on the truck so i spray it and tap out all the chunks of crap.

funny thing is the car actually runs when it's getting fuel. now i just have to retune the carbs that i totally pharked up jumping straight to check 11.

took about 1.5 hours to drive that 2 miles.

well at least all that crap is in the filter and not the floats or worse.

Glad to hear ya figured it out.

Dave.

Thats gotta be irritating when you have a problem like that and think the worst first and start messing around with other crap and find out later it was due to something as simple as Low fuel and a clogged fuel filter :laugh: At least it's nothing major and also like Dave said, at least the filter cought the majority of the "crud" and didn't make things worse.