While we’re on the subject of old car nuts, Dennis Gage of My Classic Car would probably jump at the chance to at least talk to your dad, and might be talked in to visiting. Here’s the My Classic Car web site:
IIRC, Gage is a dentist in Evansville, IN.
My guess is a carburator problem. The carb must have come off and been rebuilt, cleaned, or tinkered with many times over the years. If not, now it is time. Check the carb float if there is one. Perhaps it has sprung a leak and is no longer floating. That would dump extra gas into the manifold. Or the float could be stuck in the down position and essentially do the same thing.
Time to take the carb off the car. Put it on the bench and carefully take it apart for cleaning and examination of all the internal parts. The answer will reveal itself in the process.
There are very few parts in those old carbs, so don’t be intimidated. Most were UPDRAFT design, which helped prevent flooding. Some had cork floats, finished with shellac… Yours may have fallen apart with age. New ones can be made.
What a great site, thanks for the link! My dad has a '51 willys jeep, '49 buick dynaflow super, 70s chrysler newport, the Jeffery and most of the parts of 2 karmann ghias. He also has a deathtrap kit car that he built that is supposed to be a replica of a 1922 gazelle, none of us will touch it because we don’t want to die in a tragic car fire and/or accident. He’d have more if we had the garage/barn space and my mom would let him. I’ve been trying to talk him into get a vintage bobber and letting me drive it for him but no dice.
Thanks, it definitely won’t be me working on it. I am great at taking things apart, it is the putting them back together and haveing them work that I have trouble with. One of my dad’s mechanic friends that works on a lot of pre WWII cars is coming by the house tonight to take a look and try some of your suggestions. Keep your fingers crossed and thanks for all the help!
I agree with everyone who’s saying that this sounds like it’s running too rich, is probably a very basic carburator, and is probably readily correctable. I’d also like to add that we really don’t know how fuel pressure was controlled on these, and that may be an area to look into.
Can you post photos of the engine compartment? That might help people help you.
Yeah I’ll do that tonight after work.
Ok, it has been a crazy week so I haven’t had time to sit down and resize and clean up the photos I took with my cheesey little point and shoot camera. I didn’t know what to take photos of so these may seem like random shots to you car guys.
The first 3 photos are of the engine on the driver’s side of the car.
These shots are of the passenger side of the engine compartment.
This is the last photo of the passenger side engine compartment.
The other photos is of the 2 batteries that run the starter. He used to have 3 crammed in there all turned sideways but they revamped it and now it can work with just the 2.
Thanks for the chuckle on that one.
Wow! That’s neat! It’s an updraft carb alright, the float bowl is on the left. The device on the right of the carb is anybody’s guess…Check the carb heat!
On the drivers side, the device between the water-pump and magneto is a mystery…There has to be a generator in there somewhere…
If I read your question correctly I think the device on the right is the air intake and probably has a choke. My question is what are the ball valves and control next to each spark plug. Some boots would be my choice so it runs in the rain. This looks somewhat similar.
http://www.vintagemotorcyclelibrary.com/library/images/WC_397_Zenith_T4X_Carburetor_Instruction.jpg
I’m not familiar at all with this car or the carburetor but if it has a cork float there is a good chance it has disentegrated.
Being into old Harley motorcycles as I am, the Linkert carburetors on those also used cork floats. Age and some help from modern gasoline can do them in.
If this does turn out to be a bad float problem you might consider going onto an old Harley site (flatheadpower.com or knucklenutz.com) and weigh in to the appropriate section. A guy there makes floats and intake seals, etc out of a material called PEEK and it should be bulletproof after that.
I’m not sure Caddyman, but I’m guessing the mystery device may be the oil pump.
The ball valve next to each sparkplug is a priming petcock. In the old days, with poor quality gas and cold weather, my understanding is you’d put extra gas in the little cup above the petcock, then empty it into the cylinder, then crank away, hoping it started!