Fueling Q and mileage

[Andy Illes]

Hi Horst, nope you had a nice sojurn  

Yup, I know... the mileage surprised me too... but those are dead-accurate #s... I checked at every fill-up.  At the end of the 1,200 mi trek, my overall avg was 13.22!!  Since I had rebuilt the carb; torn apart & cleaned the distrib (including advance); put all new vacuum (and all other) hoses (and belts), plugs & wires, etc. on.... besides the timing bump... I can't say what specific thing, or combination of things, did it... but them's the #s!!!.    I'll keep track again on the way back and post it.

Yeah, I understand your concern about tinkering with stuff like timing, and fyi, just out of curiosity, I pulled 4 plugs after I got up here, and they showed no signs of detonation and were the ideal gray color, so I'd say that's a safe setting, providing you bump your octane for the bumpy roads.

As to filling speed, I never noticed any level-dependent difference... it sucked all the same no matter what.  All I can say is I was able to top-off the other day with the nozzle "latched" after removing Mrs. Wasp's handywork.... heeeeeeeeee

[Horst]

Think I'll check my timing and maybe bump it out to 6btd - too chicken to go to 10.

heh heh

[Andy Illes]

Well, I'm just outside Savannah, where my wheels/tires got stolen on the way up, lol.  

What a HUGE difference speed makes in mileage!!!   My first leg, from NYC (last fillup was actually up in Ct in July) to somewhere at the southern end of NJ, I ran 65/70, and my mileage dropped like a rock to Horst's + 8!!!   After that, I dropped back down to a steady 60, and voila... the last 2 fills (Richmond & Fayetteville) yielded 13.02 and 13.8. respectively.  Happy camper here again...  

Btw, the cruise control in this thing sucks.... it hunts up and down like a blind bird-dog!!   It works, but I'm only using it for brief stints when my heel got sore.  I'll have to find a better unit, huh?  Any ideas?

My electric problem resurfaced, with no tail or clearance lights at all.  At first, the turn signals worked ok, but went off if I hit the brakes.  A really neat mechanic at Lyon's NAPA just outside DC near where I overnighted found a loose ground.  NO CHARGE... just "have a safe trip"!!!  Did the trick and now, you can see my Clip turning, stopping, backing up, etc.... heeeeeeee

Catch y'all tonight, next stop.... should be in Florida...  

[Andy Illes]

This is in the "for whatever it's worth" category.

A retired Jeep mechanic was helping with my fuel tank thing this morning, and had some thoughts on our "surging" problem while filling up.  In mine at least, he found the stock vent 6-7" down inside, on the "rear" side (mine's obviously been altered, it's right inside the neck).  He thinks the fill-line is too long and runs too flat and even has a dip in it, like a sink trap and he also said a lot of tanks have a baffle right inside.  All of that could combine to keep the horizontal line "full", and a short fill-nozzle could pump gas into the vent, effectively blocking it... and poof, gas blows out.

Anyway, makes sense to me, and it also kindda corresponds with Horst's thoughts, as well as Al's idea about the upside-down nozzle, and what Ray said about that 5 gal for expansion.

Oh, I also mentined my vapor canister leak.  You guys were also right about overfilling.  My Chiltons shows there's supposed to be a "riser" in the charcoal canister line to act as a fuel/vapor separator... we didn't see one with the tank out.  By overfilling, I just pumped gas into the canister, and this guy thinks that with my carb lines crossed and unclamped, it just squirted fuel up over the canister, also makes sense to me.

Anyway... there ya go.  I took time for lunch, but now it's time to head to the parts store for those hoses and get the tank back on.  Thanks again for all your help, everyone.