1973 Super Beetle starts but stalls

Hello,

I have a 1973 Super Bug, I have replaced the carb, plugs, plug wires, distrib and strib cap. She will start and idle fine but once I take off down the road she stalls and I have to pump the gas to get her to start but she doesn't stay running that long, should there be air in the fuel filter? Could it be my fuel pump going bad? I have a picture of the engine on myspace

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Try this experiment:

Let the engine warm up a while. Manually, open the throttle lever very, very slowly.

Does the engine RPM increase smoothly to maximum?

What distributor is on the engine? Is it the stock unit with 2 vac hoses?

Speedy Jim

"I have no use for a car which has more spark plugs than a cow has teats!" Henry Ford, when advised that Chevrolet was introducing a 6-cylinder engine.

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He replaced the distributor. What kind and how's the timing adjusted?

Run new hoses under the gas tank and also over the trans to the rear of the engine. Also making sure that the little metal gas line that is near the fan housing is not touching metal and has no leaks. Replacing it can be a good idea!

I am thinking that you have a slight pinhole leak in the hoses or lines. It may allow air in there. You could put a vacuum gauge in the front on the gas line/hose and then run the engine for a minute or so to get a vacuum. Then shut off the engine and watch the vacuum. It should stay pretty stable. If it drops quickly you may have a problem with the pump. So then run the engine again to get a vacuum and pinch off the hose at the fuel pump inlet hose. If the vacuum still drops then you have a problem with the lines/hoses.

If the vacuum stays constant then you have a problem with the tank, maybe the sock is clogged at the bottom of the tank. If no sock.....I have found pieces of the foil seals from gas additive bottles floating in tanks. When they move around with the engine running they might plug up the gas tank outlet pipe. Or you possibly have a problem with the fuel pump being activated. Take off the pump, pushrod and stand. Polish the pushrod and ream the stand. Be careful taking the stand off since they sometimes break off inside of the engine.

Also try to run the engine with the gas cap off to see if there is a vacuum being created inside of the gas tank.

depending on what dist was installed ...

i would check the points and make sure they are set right ...

reset all the screws on the carb and then pull them back out to the specs in one of the many books ...

make sure fuel is pumping out of the line that comes from the fuel pump when the motor is being turned over.

Hi Jim,

Yes to RPM The distributor has no vac hoses.

Cecil

Hi Michael,

The timing is set to specifications It seems like it is not getting gas as some point.

Cecil

But you've just indicated that you're not running a stock distributor. If you've setting it "to specifications" and the specs are for a vacuum advance distributor, that could be part of your problem right there.