Stalling 83SC

trj911 · trj911's Garage

My car has been stalling lately. I've looked at the usual culprits, fuel filter, fuel pump, various relays, broken ,loose or disconnected wires, all to no avail. It goes like this. I'll be driving and suddenly it will cut off, I can slip the clutch and start it again every time. Sometimes it will stall when I am stopped and will not re-fire. It will crank, and almost turn over but it won't start. At those times, I can't even push start it. It will crank and it makes a dieseling sound and the throttle has no affect. The throttle can be full on or full off and the car will crank and make the same chug chug sound but it will not turn over. It feels and sounds like a fuel problem but I'm stumped. The engine temperature is not a factor. It has happened when hot and cold.

Any ideas for me to try?

syncroid · 08-17-2005, 06:52 PM

Wow, Thats a good one. Heres a couple things you can try. Make sure your distributor advance is working. Pull off the vacuum line on the inboard side of the distributor. (idle should jump up if working properly) If not, your mechanical advance in the distributor is frozen or the vacuum advance pot is bad.
Its also possible you could have a severe intake vacuum leak. I have seen the big vacuum hose for the brake booster split and cause this problem.
Anyhooos.....just a couple of ideas to throw your way. Good luck!

trj911 · trj911's Garage

Thanks, I'll check those. I checked most if not all the vacuum lines to be sure they were tightly connected but I didn't check them for cracks or splits. That could be a possibility on a 20+ year old car.

Bill Douglas · 08-17-2005, 07:10 PM

I know you've checked out the fuel pump, but I had some pretty weird things happening too and it turned out to be the connections to the fuel pump and the fuel pump earth. The earth is just in front of the battery.

trj911 · trj911's Garage

Thanks. I'll do some additional investigating.

curiousone940 · curiousone940's Garage

Sounds to me like a bad electrical connection (could be related to either the fuel or ignition system). These are frustrating and time consuming problems to diagnose and it could be something as minor as a loose pin in a connection, loose ground wire or a chafed wire somewhere. The next time it presents itself, try to isolate the issue generally (fuel or fire) and then backtrack/check your electtrical system from there.