Hey all,

I'm new to the forum and thought I'd say hi. I have a 1970 Cutlass S. It belonged to a little old lady that drove it for about 35 years to the grocery store once a week. The interior is in very nice shape. Practically brand new in most places. The passenger side has been fixed a few times due to her hitting the garage fairly often so someday I'll strip it down and give it a good paint job. I thought I'd give it a little boost and put a cam, intake manifold, adjustable roller rockers, and points conversion. Well, long story short it's been sitting for two years. It would run awesome and then die a block away. I finally towed it into a shop and they found that the rear fuel hoses were cracked so sometimes it would just suck air. The one thing I hadnt checked after spending hours and hours on it scratching my head. haha. Whelp, its back now and I can start enjoying it tomorrow. I'll post some pictures and I'm sure I'll have some questions as I tinker some more. This forum looks great!

Matt

 

It's always the one thing you didn't check.

I looked at an "old lady" car like that and it was beat to death and had at least a couple of hundred thousand miles on it, the grocery store must have been a few states away or in Canada.

 

Welcome aboard

Give us some pics please.

 

We love pictures.

 

You mean it was owned by a little "Olds" lady for about 35 years!!

Lot to be said for those little Olds ladies...once upon a past few years they could'a been hot little mommas cruisin the market for an Olds guy. I know what you mean about the right side, my Mrs. occasionally hits the garage on the way out too...

Nice to hear that you've got a nice car!!! What color combo is it? Can't wait to see the pictures!!

 

Welcome to CO, and I get your user name. Cool.

 

Hey all, thanks for the friendly welcome. I'll get some pictures up soon. I have to admin I'm a little sad because I thought it was fixed, but I went to get gas yesterday and it stumbled and died on me like old times. Ugh. I'll search the forum for ideas and post a couple questions if I dont see anything. I think next step is see if there is a vacuum leak on the new intake manifold. I know I had a heck of a time getting the valley pan to sit right. I should have bought the valley pan from Mondello.

As for color its white with black vinyl top. It needs some better wheels but its got the fattest tires I could get on the current wheel. :-) I had the exhaust tucked up under the bumper so that you can't see it. Other than that its all stock looking. I've played with the idea of a 442 grill and hood but we'll see. Gota get it running first.

 

 

Very nice Welcome!!

 

Welcome, Matt.

You might want to check your fuel sending unit. Sounds like it might not be getting any gas.

 

I've tried stock fuel pump, aftermarket mechanical, and electric mounted back by the tank. No luck. One thing I did just think of is I think there's a return line that probably isnt connected to anything. I removed all the smog stuff and the current fuel pump only has one outlet. Would that cause a problem if there is a return line not hooked to anything? Maybe a pressure problem in the tank?

 

Oh wait, duh. You said sending unit. I did drop the tank and look at it and it seemed fine. Not rusty or dirty sock. Should I replace it anyways?

 

Did you spray it with carb cleaner or anything? The sock filter is pretty fine holes and you may not notice by looking at it if it is plugged or not. I would also disconnect the fuel line and blow air through the entire thing to make sure it isn't plugged if that hasn't been done yet.

 

Is your vent line plugged or if it isn't a vented tank is your vented gas cap working. Sound like you tank is not allowing the gas to flow. Try loosning you tank cap and take it for a drive and see if that helps

 

I did not try carb cleaner on the sock. I did blow out the lines though. There's a distribution block by the tank. Looks like one goes to tank, two go to vents on each side of the tank, one to the fuel pump, and one to a fuel return line. I dont think the fuel return line is connected to anything up at the engine. Not sure if that would be a problem. I have a fuel pressure guage on a regulater in the engine compartment that shows its got pressure. Sometime it will drop off fairly fast though after I shut the engine off and other times it stays full pressure for awhile. I was thinking maybe vapor lock because the intake and carb seemed to get a bit hot so I installed some insulators/spaces on the carb. No luck there. I did an HEI conversion thinking maybe the distributor wasnt happy but that didnt fix it. hmmm

 

Does your fuel pump have a return line? It looks like originally, you had a 2-line fuel sending unit, one of which is the return. If so, it should be hooked up.

 

Nope, just one line. It's currently an aftermarket Holley though. I was doing some searching through the forum and there was mention of a vacuum canister. Should the 70 cutlass have one? I wonder if I removed it with the rest of the smog stuff. Basically I went through with my Dad and said do I need this? how about this? and he kept saying nope. Maybe I shouldnt have listen to him. haha

 

Matt, there will definitely be someone to help you out better than me here on the boards. When it comes to smog equipment, I'm clueless as I've never owned a car with such a setup.

However, if I were you, I'd purchase one of these each. They're invaluable as to how things were originally on your car.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1970-...sQ5fLiterature

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1970-...sQ5fLiterature

 

Thanks for the links. I actually have the factory OEM shop manual on CD on order. Hopefully it will be here soon. I have a Chiltons but its not as helpfull since its for a broad range of years.

 

I answered a couple questions for myself today. Went out to try to do a vacuum test with starter fluid but didnt have any. I did check and what I thought was a fuel return line appears to be connected to the charcoil canister. Probably a smog thing. As for the vacuum canister I believe that its on the firewall and it just for the heater/AC. The AC was in bad shape when I got the car so I just removed it and did an AC block off plate for the firewall to retain the blower motor. What bugs the daylights out of me is the car ran amazing in the driveway today. I did notice that the throttle plate was hung up so it was idling pretty high. Probably just a fluke because I dont remember it ever doing that before. I dont think the linkage is getting binded up or anything and I dont think that would be the cause of my issues anyways. It just bogs down on load. Weird.

 

For some reason I can't see any of the pics posted here by Matt. Anybody else having this problem?

 

Yeah moi

 

X3 no pictures here either

 

Hmm... I just linked them to my personal website and they show up on my browser. Maybe because they are cached on my machine. Can you get to the following?

http://www.jpegcity.com/shared/NOTDADS_small.jpg is my avatar.

 

I can see that

 

Whelp, couldnt get the dang thing to even idle today to test for a vacuum leak with a can of starting fluid. I did see there's a little bulge in the front rubber manifold gasket on the intake. I've decided to just pull the intake and reseal it to rule that out. I ordered a Mondello valley pan and the intake manifold gaskets they recommend. It sounds like I'll have to drill/tap two screws to hold the valley pan in the bottom of the valley. Anyone used Modello cork gaskets? My Dad was saying they don't last as long. I'm guessing you still use some liquid gasket along with the cork?

 

I use the permatex ultra series , they work good and on that I would probably use the ultra black. I am sure there are others that guys use as well.