Feeling in over my head and not sure what to do next

[dmjlambert]

Here's the background story on my truck and me, so you can have the context for a couple questions.

I told a friend I wanted an old truck to work on and bring back to life. He had a friend that wanted his 69 CST/10 hauled off. After having a look at it with another friend, we decided it looked like very little had been done to it, and it was just parked outside since 1985. It looks like the truck is mostly original, and the exhaust was re-done with glass packs and somebody lost the carburetor spacer. I am not an experienced auto mechanic, but I know about mechanical and electrical things, and I'm pretty good at removing and replacing parts such as starters, alternators, fuel pumps, etc. I am weak at diagnostics.

My friend has worked on old cars and trucks many times and he gets the engines rebuilt by a machine shop he knows about in Edgewood, TX. So I got his help and we pulled the engine and sent it there. Meanwhile I ordered and installed a new gas tank, and had the radiator cleaned and tested, fixed up the brakes and wheels/tires. We sent it to the machine shop with an electronic distrubutor my friend had from a later model truck. The engine came back and was beautiful and we put it back in, then took it back to the machine shop for an exhaust system and for help figuring out how some of the brackets, wires, and hoses go.

The mechanic at the machine shop tinkered with the carburetor numerous times and seemed to have great confidence that it would work if he took it apart and worked on it enough times. He kept the truck for a few weeks and drove it back and forth to his house, and tinkered with the carburetor a few times, before giving me the truck back.

I have a lot of work to do on it to make it inspection ready, such as lights, horns, switches, and all sorts of stuff. Meanwhile I make time to go out and start it every day and run it for a while. It is getting harder and harder to start, and it stalls. I can't start it in the morning. It only starts in the late morning or afternoon. When it runs, it runs quite well.

The mechanic, friends, and auto parts store guys recommended putting inline fuel filters in the fuel line in several spots, to make sure the fuel going into the carburetor is very clean. When at the parts store they asked what kind I wanted and they told me they had clear ones and metal ones. I told them the clear ones sounded good and everybody thought that is a great choice, "that's the kind I use", and all sorts of positive feedback. The mechanic installed them when he was doing the finishing touches on the truck. In the past few days I found that was a pretty bad choice, because just the tension from the weight of the fuel hose and the way the fuel hose bends after coming off a spool where it has been stored for months is enough to cause the ends of the fuel filter to buckle and bend and break loose the inside filter element. The filters failed within a couple weeks. To top it off, on closer examination I found the mechanic used hose clearly marked "do not use for fuel." I went to the auto parts store today and got some fuel line hose and a metal fuel filter (WIX 33033), replaced the hoses and put the filter on the last leg of the fuel's journey, at the carburetor. I did this re-work of the fuel lines today hoping to improve the situation. The fuel hose is less flexible than the "do not use for fuel" hose, so now I have kinking happening between the metal fuel line coming from the cab and the fuel pump, so I'm now worried about whether that could cause some stalling.

Early on in the project I asked my friend who helped me pull and re-install the engine what I should expect regarding the carburetor, and he said I could use the carburetor I had "if it took a rebuild kit, because some carburetors rebuild OK, and some just don't." After talking to the mechanic at the machine shop, who put a carburetor kit in it, and took it apart and put it back together several times, I get the feeling he never under any circumstances would declare a carburetor unworkable and he never throws anything out and starts fresh. I asked him to tell me if it was time to get a new carburetor, and he said no, that mine just needed some more work.

So, now I have this truck home and it is many miles from the machine shop mechanic and I have nobody to bail me out of a situation where the engine is finicky and I don't know what to do. My question is, is there a point at which time of death probably should have been called on my carburetor? How likely are fuel line problems to be most of my problem? I'm feeling in over my head a little here. My goal is to use the truck as a daily driver, and I don't need any super horsepower or fancy upgrades, or to make a hot rod out of it. Not sure what I should do next. I continue working on the wiring for lights and other inspection items.