85 2.8L carburetor issue and also a radio issue

[JoeDaddy21]

Hello all,

I know I’ve been posting a fair amount recently, but I’m having a few odd ball issues with this truck.
The issue with the carb, is that I noticed the choke was not opening all the way. Upon further investigation, I found that the hose that vents heat from the engine into the carb to open then bimetal spring is not there. If anyone has a diagram of how a new one would be routed to fix this it would be terrific.

the radio is probably a much simpler issue. It is a factory radio. The lights behind it are illuminated, but the radio itself does not work and nothing is displayed on the small screen. I checked the fuse and it’s fine, and I even checked it with another fuse, still no resolution. I just want to see if there is anything I should do before I buy an aftermarket stereo.
Thanks

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Hello all,

I know I’ve been posting a fair amount recently, but I’m having a few odd ball issues with this truck.
The issue with the carb, is that I noticed the choke was not opening all the way. Upon further investigation, I found that the hose that vents heat from the engine into the carb to open then bimetal spring is not there. If anyone has a diagram of how a new one would be routed to fix this it would be terrific.

the radio is probably a much simpler issue. It is a factory radio. The lights behind it are illuminated, but the radio itself does not work and nothing is displayed on the small screen. I checked the fuse and it’s fine, and I even checked it with another fuse, still no resolution. I just want to see if there is anything I should do before I buy an aftermarket stereo.
Thanks

Carburetors are evil. **** carburetors.


Radio? Remove it. Save it, put it somewhere in the truck safe (trust me on this, I've kicked myself a few times). Go to Walmart and get the dual head unit they sell for $20 and a bottle of smoke Grey translucent nail polish.

The nail polish is for the lights. You'll see what I mean the first time you drive at night.

But the dual is an unbelievable deal for 20 bucks. Sounds better than a 30 some year old head unit, and has Bluetooth.

If you get really ambitious, watch Amazon returns for returned car speakers. Did all four in my 88 for $60, and it sounds better than most factory base model systems.

Oh, and Ford Europe 2.8 is efi. Came in capri, scorpio, Sierra, alpine, Cortina ii, and a few others. If I were to ever build a 2.8 - and I may - I'd do it as a UK efi with American heads, forged pistons, drill, port, and flow the **** out of the heads, remove valve bosses and run bronze valve guide, highest compression I could go on pump gas with UK Kent fast road cam. Would be a blast in a 2wd.

 

[JoeDaddy21]

What do you do with the nail polish? And would I just be holding on to the radio for the sake of holding on to it?

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

What do you do with the nail polish? And would I just be holding on to the radio for the sake of holding on to it?

Restro piece if ever wanted. Not hard to dump guts of an Amp in and restore to modern features.

At very least put on ebay or here for shipping. Some of us like the vintage look haha

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

2.8 has electric choke, make sure it is getting power and adjusted correctly if it isn't working right.

It doesn't get 12v, if you give it 12v it will open too fast.

 

[JoeDaddy21]

Restro piece if ever wanted. Not hard to dump guts of an Amp in and restore to modern features.

At very least put on ebay or here for shipping. Some of us like the vintage look haha

I do like like vintage look, but don’t know too much about tearing apart radios. Also, I’m still a little confused on what to do with the nail polish that you mentioned.

 

[JoeDaddy21]

2.8 has electric choke, make sure it is getting power and adjusted correctly if it isn't working right.

It doesn't get 12v, if you give it 12v it will open too fast.

I thought there was a heater hose that went in the port to the left of the bimetal spring location? If not, which part do I check? There was a small wire with a plug going into where the spring is, but I thought that monitored the temp not controlled it

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

No, it the wire makes the choke work. Looking at my old carb (on a 289 I turned into a lamp in my living room) I dont think anything goes on that post behind the choke, if you look at the other nipples on the carb it is not shaped the same (and alarmist looked like it tapers smaller)

I will try to remember to pull out my service manuals tomorrow night, they go into detail on it.

 

[JoeDaddy21]

No, it the wire makes the choke work. Looking at my old carb (on a 289 I turned into a lamp in my living room) I dont think anything goes on that post behind the choke, if you look at the other nipples on the carb it is not shaped the same (and alarmist looked like it tapers smaller)

I will try to remember to pull out my service manuals tomorrow night, they go into detail on it.

Yes, I was looking at this part right here. I saw one diagram where a hose ran down from this port.

 

[19Walt93]

Nope, that's an electric choke. They used the same old casting from when hot air from the exhaust manifold was drawn into the housing. Ford always used to feed the choke stator voltage from the alternator, about 7 volts.

 

[JoeDaddy21]

Nope, that's an electric choke. They used the same old casting from when hot air from the exhaust manifold was drawn into the housing. Ford always used to feed the choke stator voltage from the alternator, about 7 volts.

Okay, that clears it up a lot then, thank you. So the small wire I saw the leads to the bimetal spring should run down to the alternator and I just need to make sure it’s getting the voltage?

 

[19Walt93]

If you look at the back of the alternator the terminals should be marked "S", "F", and "A". S is for stator. Once you confirm the wire is attached and in good shape, I'd test the charging system output before doing anything more serious.

 

[JoeDaddy21]

The alternator output is fine, have not had any issues with it and the meter says it’s in a good range

 

[JoeDaddy21]

Nope, that's an electric choke. They used the same old casting from when hot air from the exhaust manifold was drawn into the housing. Ford always used to feed the choke stator voltage from the alternator, about 7 volts.

So I checked the connector, and something was a bit odd. I got pulses of voltage to the boot not a steady voltage. I then Ran a wire straight from battery to it to see if it would open, and the choke still never opened fully.

 

[RonD]

The electric choke was usually powered by alternator so choke spring would only Warm UP when engine was actually running

If it was powered by Key ON voltage then driver may turn on the key and NOT start the engine right away, for ??? reason
Then when he did start engine choke would be open too far and wouldn't run well until engine actually warmed up

There was never a good "automatic" choke setup on a carburetor, you would ALWAYS need to adjust them for winter and then summer temps.
Manual chokes work the best