1987 V.8 Carburater (electric) Caprice Classic

Disconnect the battery to reset the somputer.

Find out why.

It will run with gas poured in it, so it isn't getting any the normal way.

The fuel filter could be plugged.

The fuel pump could be bad.

You could have a broken fuel line. (any gas smells around the car lately?)

Your gas gauge might be stuck. so you are actually out of gas.

A few ideas for you.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's - Gone to the rust pile... Canadian Off Road Trips Photos: Non members can still view! Jan/06 (More Off Road album links at bottom of the view page)

With temperatures like we've been having, vapor lock came to mind. We seldom see it now since the high fuel line pressures of injection system tend to keep the gasoline liquid. But carburetors were sometimes very susceptible.

Are you SURE there's anything "electric" involved in the carb on an 87 Caprice, other than computer feeback to a VDC solenoid to trim the mixture? If the pedal is having NO effect, I'm betting that the accelerator pedal cable is broken or disconnected.

And veering off-topic....

hls wrote:

That's the theory, but you wanna hear some irony? I drive a carbureted car every day ('66 Dodge, 440 engine, Edelbrock AVS carb, 20k miles on a fresh overhaul). From April to October, it runs *perfectly*. Even in

110-degree ambient weather, sitting in stop-and-go traffic at 5:00 PM with the AC turned up full-bore, it won't vapor lock or overheat (dang, did Chrysler ever know how to build a cooling system back then).

But come October and the switch to "winter" gasoline, it vapor-locks all too easily when the ambient temp gets over 75F. And since I live in Texas, that's just about every day. I despise winter-blend gasoline, and all it does is increase evaporative emissions anyway. Modern EFI cars vaporize the fuel just fine even when its blended for normal lower vapor-pressures, and older cars like mine vapor lock on the crap, so why even use it? Its a scam, I tell ya! :-p

Sure, winter blends have more volatile components, and would be more prone to vapor lock.

I have had had many cars that never vapor locked, even in the worst of weather. But, you may remember, in those days we also ran the engines cooler than we do today, whenever possible.

I agree that fuel injection solves a lot of problems.

I've never had a car that *DID* vapor lock until the winter-blend swill for the last couple of years came out. :( Its still not bad enough to stall the car, but its really annoying to have it stuble and surge mid-acceleration. I have a further heat mitigation plan that I'm going to try this winter. Worst case, I'll add a fuel return line and duplicate the continuous circulation fuel system that the HP 440 and 426 Hemi B-body cars had circa 67-72, which used the fuel tank as a heat sink to keep the fuel in the lines much cooler during low-flow intervals (idling at a stoplight, for example). My 69 R/T doesn't have the problem at all, even with the worst winter-blends we get here.

A number of years back, I would see mid-80s low-pressure throttle-body injected cars vapor locked in the middle of winter beside the road as often or more often than carb cars. A good hot day with all the gas stations selling winter blend and you might see 2 or 3 stalled cars on the daily commute, but at the time the blends weren't bad enough to vapor lock my carb'd car. I think that the early TBI cars got the fuel hotter than carb cars on the assumption that the higher pressure would make it OK, but 15 PSI or so just wasn't quite high enough. MPFI with

40-60 PSI pretty well fixes it altogether.