few months back I started having troubles with a daily driver. runs like crap. popping out exhaust sometimes on the left sometimes on the right side. light throttle gets it going but as you try to open throttle is falls on its face wont go like it runs out of fuel.

I change mech pump and got a little better then worse again. swap on some clear fuel line and see bubbles check pump and it is hot so me thinks vapor locking.

swap to electric pump with a return line seem to go a little better for a day or so. then back to popping fall flat. (reminds me of a bad condenser/points gone bad... but I have a pertronix in there. Pull dist from another engine with a new pertronix unit same results.

rebuild the carb and flush out...thought it had trace of water but didn't pay much attention to it at that moment. runs great at first then 5 miles down the road it popping falls over.. tow it home.

now I am thinking it jump a tooth on the chain/gears maybe. no everything seems to line up ok. timing light shows steady and @ 32* all in by 1500 rpm.

now me thinking maybe it bent a pushrod or sticky valve????

so limp it around a couple of Saturdays and then it just don't want to go and getting worse. towed it home 3x 1 day trying to get 5 miles out of it.

open carb up again to blow it out...now I pay attention to the traces of water and smells funny.

I am thinking maybe it got some water in the gas from gas station??? its on empty now so I add 5 gallons non ethanol gas and some snake oil to remove water... that seemed to really make it pop and not run.. so I drain the take removing over 1.75 gallons of water right out the drain first then some weak smelling gas.. WOW that's a lot of water me thinks. pour about 1/2 gallon fresh gas to flush it out good.. add 5 gallons of non-ethanol gas. try it again.. way better but still popping not wanting to run..

then it hit me..should have blown the fuel lines out so maybe a little water left. open carb and find good amount of water. flush carb and making progress runs better as I drive it starts runs but pops a little now and then on WOT blast. change plugs and now it is way better with a slight amount of popping here and there but almost gone and will drive now make fair WOT blast.


I get to looking and find that my gas cap was broke and leaking water into the tank and with all the rain we have lately it must have just got a lot in there over time. since I used a ferd gas tank mounting in the rear of truck water drips from bed floor under tail gate right dead center of my broken cap letting water in the tank any time it rains.

sucks to figure out I started at the wrong end troubleshooting the issue. so lots of water has some of the same symptoms a bad condenser has with points IGN. miss-fires and popping out exhaust. lesson learned I guess.

but it did motivate me to start a new engine build and I will be removing the tank to flush/dry it out and I will be sure to blow all lines out and clean carb one more time before new engine fires up.

did I mention I hate trouble shooting engine troubles?

Wow you ain't kidding that was a lot of water! That's a good lesson to all with a tank mounted like that to check/replace old caps!!!

not to mention the 300$ I could have saved on a new mech pump/electric pump/ regulator/32 feet of braid line/ return line tank bung/carb gaskets/ect...

good thing I don't charge myself for labor? I would have fired me by now.

Its OK, it probably deserved all of that stuff for the service the truck has given you. What I find interesting is that the Ford part was what led to all the problems.

The Dakota gas tank fill tubes have a plastic box that sits under the bed side and has a gas door on the outside. That set up really helps with keeping water out of the fuel tank. I never really understood why Dodge decided they needed a flush mounted gas fill on the outside of the 72-93 trucks. That set up sort of made sense with the step sides, but keeping it with the fleet sides really didn't make much sense to me.

I had about the same thing happen years ago when I was fixing up a 57 Dodge pickup. I bought it with a blown up 440 in it, and swapped it out for a known good 383 that I drove into the shop to swap it. Got it in and it wouldn't even hit. Tried everything under the sun, and it would never hit a lick! It had good fire, so I checked to see if the fuel pump was working, and it was....just like 2 days before...lol. I checked the carb to see if it was squirting gas when the throttle was opened, and it had a good squirt. I went and bought a can of ether, and it fired right off and then quit. I finally stuck my finger down the carb and blipped the linkage to get my finger wet (Stop it!) and it had no smell at all. Bingo! Water in the tank from sitting for years. Tank had a drain plug, so I drained it all out and put some fresh gas in it, and had no more troubles. I was about ready to fire me too!!

the 85 stepside had a 32 gallon saddle tank. when I did the axle flop & tubbed it. for good weight transfer and room for duel exhaust turned out at the step/fenders. I used a ferd cougar 22galon tank plus the sender works my stock fuel gauge which mounts in the rear of my truck frame like a RC tank. fill tube is right in the center under the bed/tail gate. I used a small piece of fill tube from a chebby truck/rubber hose/clamps to rig the fill tube/cap. so actually it was a chebby part (plastic screw in cap) that nixed me real good. LOL! the ferd part is holding up good and working ok. the cap was a vented cap and broke the top cover off. I never looked at it that close to notice the small hole in the center of bottom 1/2 of cap.
I will be fixing this issue for sure NOW that I know. also I did not remove the stepside fill spout right away. then a friend went to fill up gas and found it dumping on his feet so I removed it to avoid any more confusion with others gas it up when I was not around.