[Guest]

after a year of just trying to get the car onto the road, and all i get is a car that can go about a mile and a half and starts choking like hell.

i´ll basically tell you all i know, i´m test driving my 73 gt and get all the way to the end of my road (about a mile and a half) put it in a drive way turn around, get about 300 yards down and the car starts to lose rpm´s, it´s not a constant drop off of the engine because the car seems to come back for a second then choke. we´ve had the car sit on idle before for a lot longer time than i had it out on the road today and it never gave out during that time though. i tried replacing the larger vacuum hose (though nothing seemed to be wrong with it before, just had some crap in it so decided to replace it) and the gas filter (which when i blew the gas out of the old filter is seemed to come out a shade of red).

About 2 years ago the car had 10-15 year old gas in it so some crud might have settled in the tank, could that have caused the problem or could it be somewhere else?

 

[Gary]

If it idles ok, but loses power at higher rpms, it sounds like a fuel starvation issue.
If you have a clear fuel filter mounted look to see if it is empty when the car "Chokes". The GT´s have a "sock" located in the gas tank at the fuel outlet. This could be partially blocked and restricting fuel flow. Other possibilities, needle/seat/float problem in the carb.

 

[Guest]

If you´re still having problems, and you have fuel at the filter, your problem could be a small piece of rubber in the fuel line at the carb. If the rubber fuel line is installed a little carelessly, a small peice of the rubber tubing can be cut off by the metal tube on the carb which WILL kill the car when under power, but will almost always let the car idle. The piece does not have to be very big. It can also come in the form of a small shaving from where the hose is cut. Is the test area sloping down in one direction and uphill on the way back, i.e. coasting under light power one way? If so, this may be your fix, but if you´re getting red stuff from the filter, your fuel is probably contaminated and Gary has already helped you out.

 

[Guest]

Just had the same problem. Just want to add that visually looking through the filter doesn´t do the job. My GT had sat for the last 8 years, and finished rebuilding ETC. around Oct. Had installed a new filter in July at the start of the project after draining and flushing the tank, the best that I could. So after 4 months it silted up with what I suppose is varnish and was not really detectable to the eye. It did only really die, when I was being lazy and not shifting, just using the carb secondary.