Howdy, neighbor. I may take you up on that. If you get up near Raleigh, let me know. You may also be interested to know that you're down near one of the all you can carry junkyards: Young's at 4172 S U.S. 117 Alt Hwy, Dudley, NC 28333
AAA got it home- it was registered and had a plate on it, so it was a non-issue.
It started surging badly again today when it was hot, to the point I aborted half of my lunch plans and went back to work. It's not anything transmission related, since I stopped, put it in park and it'll do it with zero load on the engine. Troubleshooting incoming.
Here's a picture of it this morning. I have the center caps off of the wheels at the moment, since I bled the brakes yesterday. It really need to be an inch or two higher, especially in the back. You can also see, based on the paint fade, which side was getting more sun as it sat for 10 years...
Cant recall if I missed it or not but did you ever get around to that fuel filter? Wondering if that couldn't effect the surging a bit. After sitting as long as it did even if you had changed it out it might need another clean.
Good to know about the junkyard, I'm gonna need it sooner or later :) Still looking to get a garage built or maybe convert my barn (barn would probably work but I'd rather go with something purpose built and the wife has given the ok) but once I have a place to work and the mess of all my stuff sorted from the move I'm sure I'll find some kinda trouble to get into
In reply to JThw8 :
Yep, I changed the fuel filter. I've done a bit of research, there could be multiple causes.
Brett_Murphy said:Going up a hill with less than a full tank of gas makes the truck surge a bit. This reminded me that I didn't change the fuel filter (it is sitting in the seat) but also makes me wonder if the fuel pickup isn't right somehow.
Buddy of mine had a 454SS. One of the problems he found and fixed, before wrapping it around a tree, was that the General put the fuel pickup in so that it sucked fuel from the front of the tank. At roughly 1/4 of a tank, if he got on it he would get fuel starvation issues from the fuel sloshing to the back of the tank.
Not sure if yours has the same setup, but I think there was an aftermarket solution.
Good luck with it, and nice build!
Temps and load don't matter. If I push on the gas more than a smidge, it chokes out.
So, a TPS arrived today, but it was raining. I don't like standing in the rain working on trucks, even if a TPS is probably a 15 minute job.
Instead, I removed the tailgate release mechanism and got it from completely frozen to moving a bit with some penetrating oil and a bit of light percussion with a couple of hammers. The release handle will move the arms, albeit a bit stiffly, but they don't return to center without a bunch of effort. Keith Tanner posted about the rust-be-gone stuff, so I picked that up, de-greased the assembly with brake cleaner and I have that soaking for a while. I'm hoping it works- being able to open the tail gate would be pretty good.
Her's hoping it isn't raining tomorrow so I can install the TPS.
The TPS is adjusted to the correct amount of voltage coming from it at idle. Hopefully it fixes things!! 
I installed the sway bar end link that was MIA and the TPS.
The TPS helped, a little. I can now give it about 1/4 pedal worth of gas before it chokes.
It will still choke sitting in park, so it isn't the transmission. I keep reminding myself of that. If I just stomp it, it will rev to maybe 2500 RPM, then just die, like I've turned off the key, but if I let off of the gas, it will keep running just fine. It's great at idle and low throttle, but I can't drive it in Raleigh like that without dying.
I've convinced myself that the fact that both 350 Chevys I have are doing the same thing is funny instead of infuriating.
I probably missed it, but have you checked fuel pressure?
When you say, "it dies," do you mean it won't rev higher, or do you mean it actually stalls the engine? Because if it's acting like a rev limit, I would suspect a plugged up cat.
In reply to AngryCorvair :
The engine stops running. I'll take a video.
be sure to get a view of what's coming out the exhaust when it chokes and dies.
It started rough, but behaved just fine today.
The difference is that it was 70 degrees today and it was about 55 a few days ago. It wasn't doing this in the summer. I'm hoping that I don't have a temperature dependent fault and it's just something easy like fuel pressure- which I've not checked. It's got a new fuel filter and pump, but that might not mean much.
No check engine light, either.
what does it do if you unplug (one at a time, and reconnect before moving on):
IAT
CLT
MAF
Oh, I remember this game.
Back in 2010, we used a very questionable $1000 1995 Suburban to tow one of our cars to the Challenge from MA. When we got to CT, it started running like crap, so we pulled off to an Autozone and started throwing parts at it. The usual suspects, like the MAP sensor, IAC, and others weren't doing the trick. We then figured out if we unplugged the MAP it would run kinda OK. It was guzzling gas, but it got us down there. After we got to the hotel, it turned out that one of the O2 sensors was the culprit. These systems are funny like that.
It's in the low 40s and I started up the Terrible Truck and it went right back to its hesitation games. The symptom remains that going past a certain RPM or throttle input makes the engine hesitate and either surge or choke out, and it happens both driving and in park.
So, the external temp may have something to do with it. I'm three days into a course of antibiotics and have have zero motivation to do any work in this weather right now.
I'll check behavior with different things disconnected soon-ish.
A friend told me of a 1LE he had years ago that had a temperature-dependent yet inconsistent starting issue. Might have been a driveability issue as well, I don't remember. But what I did remember was that nobody could find it, until they finally replaced the distributer itself (there was all new ignition everything else), and it worked - the issue was a wee crack in the reluctor. Or pickup. I can't remember. The point of the story is: have you tried a known good distributor, you know, for science?
The distributor is brand new. Granted, that doesn't mean that it's good. Thank you for the suggestion.
We've been back to rain all the time for the past few days. I am hoping this weekend is clear like they are predicting. The plan is to:
Test fuel pressure
See how it runs disconnecting/reconnecting each of these in turn:
IAT (intake air temp)
CLT (coolant temp sensor)
MAF (mass air flow)
Okay. I had a few minutes to mess with this earlier.
Disconnecting the Engine Coolant Temp when it was hot made it impossible to start. Disconnecting it after it was started and then hitting the gas resulted in zero change in behavior.
There is no IAT or MAF on TBI trucks this old. Heh.
I didn't check the fuel pressure, but it does spit more gasoline if you open the throttle more. I realize this is an unscientific observation, but that's all I have right now. I know I've got to get a fuel pressure reading.
Anyhow, here is a video of what it is doing. It spits gas fine at idle, and it increases the flow until it hits a point where it seems to stop sending gasoline for a moment, then it sends the gasoline again. Sorry for the wind noise, you can't really hear the engine/exhaust noise, but the RPMs climb steadily until it pretty much hits a wall, and no fuel is sent. Then, if I back off the throttle, it spits a bunch of gasoline and returns to normal behavior. If I stay on the throttle, it'll die.
You can see the gas behavior in the driver's side bowl- the passenger side is similar.
Just to mix it up with the rain, it snowed in NC on Thursday. No fuel pressure test, yet. My days of working in the snow when it is 27 degree F outside are long past.
The Terrible Truck in its natural habitat: On jack stands.
You can see the dent where the tree was growing into it near the back wheel, just in front of the bed. I just plan to tap that out.
The fuel pressure test kit I have has no provisions to check a TBI system with hard lines from the pump to the intake in the box.
I found this out a bit too late to do anything about it. The current plan will be to get some fittings that allow me to remove the fuel filter and put the gauge in its place.
I seriously suspect that it's going to show an increasing reading and then a cutoff to zero, though, since that's what I'm observing in the bowl. I'd think and obstruction or something would just show low fuel pressure.
So, the fuel pressure is good, right up until it isn't, at which point it just drops to nothing.
1. Good fuel pressure
2. New fuel filter
3. New TPS
4. Fuel pump has 150 miles on it
5. Good vacuum
6. Rebuilt TBI
Does the TBI system have some kind of cut-off in case the return line is blocked or something?
I'm going to pull the return line and see how it behaves.
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