1988 Pickup: Stumbling, Rumbling, Bumbling...When Moist

Nov 08, 2006 5 Replies

Hello:



As some of you are aware, I deliver newspapers nightly (or morningly) from approx. 3:00AM to 6:30AM, with approximately 2 hours of that time spent driving with a lot of idling. Well, on rainy / misty / moist days, on my final approach to my home and climbing a 5% grade hill (of perhaps a half mile at most) and at almost the exact 2 hour running mark my engine starts to sputter like you wouldn't believe; disengaging the clutch seems to help a little bit, but even when I do that the engine will often just stop running. It runs so rough that it seems like the engine (with clutch engaged) acts like it's going to jump out of the engine compartment. Today, I added a container of gas cleaner immediately, but the problem arose again when I continued past my home to run another errand and had to climb another gentle grade. After sitting for a half-hour or so afterwards, the truck ran fine. I won't be able to get this looked at for a few weeks. Has anyone ever run into this before? This only happened one time on a non-rainy day, and oddly enough that was 2 1/2 hours into a return trip from my brother's in CT (and as I climbed a gentle grade at highway speeds). I'm stumped.



Thanks for all of your past and future help,



mothy



Low on fuel and sucking up sediment in the fuel tank?

If that's the case, can that stuff be sucked out? Or does it require something more intrusive?

Thanks,

mothy

I had a similar problem on another vehicle with an electric fuel pump. It would get weaker after about an hour and it would not send enough pressure of gas to the engine to keep it running. I doubt if yours has an electric fuel pump, but if it does, that could be the problem, or a gas filter clogged or lots of sediment in the bottom of your gas tank. You might try filling the tank after about an hour of drving and see what happens to the problem.

If it only acts up when it is wet outside I would suspect it is the ignition. Bad wires, cap, rotor or coil could cause this. Pretty easy to check. Take a spray bottle and fill it with water. with the engine running slowly spray the wires, cap and coil. Start with the wires first, then the dist cap, then the coil. When you spray the bad part it should cause it to miss or cut off. Worn spark plugs will make an ignition problem worse.

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