Agh!!!! Motor Trouble!!!! Help!!!!!

[blueroo]

First, I would like to apologize if I seem "spazzy" about this. This problem seemed to come out of nowhere and I have no idea where it's coming from and I need to get it fixed really quick since I have class tomorrow and I missed class yesterday because of it.

Anyhow, here's the situation. My drive from my house to my school is roughly 30-35 minutes. During this drive, I go through most common speed limits. 25, 35, 40, 45, and 55.

Yesterday we got our first real snow. I was driving to school and for the first half of the trip everything was going fine. About halfway to school, the car started to act up and I first attributed it to wheel slip. No biggie. It would happen every time I left a stop sign or stop light. It didn't quite make sense though since last winter this didn't happen. But nonetheless I started feathering it, and but the problem still remained.

It wasn't until after I got off the road I was doing 55 on (for a matter of 1500ft max) and got onto the next road that I fully realized it wasn't wheelslip. Leaving the stop sign had the problem but I still thought of it nothing major. Shifted into 2nd gear like normal and was fine until about 3100RPM. At that point, the problem came up again, but I was going in a straight line and was accelerating normally now, not leaving a stop sign/light. The car seemed to fall flat on its face and it felt like ignition breakup. I let off the throttle for a few seconds, got back on it normally, 3100RPM, same deal. I couldn't go any faster. For the remaining 5 mintues of my trip to school it got worse and worse.

I got to school, backed into my space, put the car in neutral, set the brake, got out, lifted the hood and about passed out. There seemed to be water on top of the carb, around the vent valve rod, etc. I started playing with the linkage, gently revving the motor and was getting the ignition breakup or whatever at a very low rpm. Normally, in neutral, nothing happens until over 5 grand. This was happening well under 5 grand. So I shut the car off, went to class to hand in my assignment, told my prof I had to go and went back out to my car.

I got back in, pushed the clutch in, lightly pumped the gas twice and turned the key. Much to my surprise, the car fired right up without any hesitation. This is good I thought. I played with the gas and it seemed normal. So I started to drive home. And it seemed normal at first. Not 100%, but not bad at all. Less than halfway home though it started to act up. At this point I had my headlights on, my foglights on and my front defroster on high. I shut the defroster off and it seemed (it could've just been me though) to get better for a bit. Then it started acting up again. I changed my route to stick to the main road (mainly 501 for those who know the area) so in case something went seriously wrong, I had a short trip to walk to get to a phone or whatever. And it just began to get progressively worse. 1st gear below 2000RPM sounded terrible and in 2nd gear I couldn't go past 20mph which is not a good thing on 501 with a line of cars behind you.

Theres' three things I could think of that might be causing the problem but none of them seem to make perfect sense to me. Problem with the carb, problem with the ignition timing, problem with the valves.

However, the last one I adjusted was valves and that was this past Friday, and from Friday through Monday, I drove the car without any problems.

I rebuilt the carb about three weeks ago, and aside from a little bit of gasoline "weeping" around the main body gaskets and running slightly rich, it seems to be fine.

Igntion wise, I have no clue.

There are a few other things, I don't know if they have any bearing whatsoever, but I'm going to list them

1)Normally the car will warm up to 190 before dropping to around 155. Lately it warms up to 165, falls to about 130-140, up to 180, then back to 155.
2) This problem has beeng very ongoing. The heater puts out virtually no heat and every so often there's a "sloshing" sound from the heater box. Both heater lines are hot to the touch like normal though.
3) When I adjusted the valves, the idle really smoothed out to around a consitent 1000RPM. Yesterday it was everywhere from 550 to about 1200.


Can anyone at least tell me what to look for? Thanks so much.

[dead horse]

ok the only thing you missed was what color socks you were wearing --
to much information - lets start with water on top of motor ???

what year car ?
does this car have a distribator with points and condencer ?
if theres water and you do in fact have a dis. it sounds like the inside of the cap is wet --
loss of engin water = no heat from heater

[blueroo]

Year is 1964. Distributor, yes, points and condenser no. It has an Ignitor I (not II) electronic ignition system under the cap.

[blueroo]

I just checked underneath the cap. Both the underside of the cap and the inside of the dizzy is dry.

[blueroo]

I added two bottles of Heet to the tank today, and it seems to be working.

[StoveBolt]

Did you check the coolant level in the radiator?, it's low or frozen is my guess..