85 W250 now has no idle...

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Blue Chaos

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Found the vacuum line problem from two posts ago. Drove it twice this morning and everything was great went to drive it a third time and it won't idle, it tries but dies. So every stop sign and signal I have to go to neutral and give her a tiny bit of gas. If it does die I have to put some gas in the carb to get it to start back up... Maybe the fuel pump?? Ideas?
 

RonJon '06

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There should be a warm idle adjustment screw near where the throttle cable attaches to the carb. Could be you just need to adjust the idle up a bit.
 

crazzywolfie

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But that still doesn't help you determine if it is a bad fuel pump or a defective fuel filter. On my truck I had to go with a return less fuel filter because the stock style filter was returning too much fuel to the tank instead of pumping it to the carb.

Also some new pumps are really not that great. I had one die in less than 3 years
 
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Blue Chaos

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OK so the filter and pump helped but didn't solve. So I'm thinking pcv valve and/or carb needs cleaned/rebuilt. What do y'all think? I don't think it's just an idle screw problem because its ran and idled great till two days ago.
 

RonJon '06

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A new PCV valve couldn't hurt and they're cheap. If it were me I'd be thinking something is still screwed up with the vacuum lines. Either that or the carb is out of adjustment or needs to be rebuilt like you said. When you said it was idling really high before I thought someone might have messed with the idle adjustment to compensate. The good thing is that these older trucks really aren't that complicated so I'm sure you'll figure it out soon.
 
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Blue Chaos

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A new PCV valve couldn't hurt and they're cheap. If it were me I'd be thinking something is still screwed up with the vacuum lines. Either that or the carb is out of adjustment or needs to be rebuilt like you said. When you said it was idling really high before I thought someone might have messed with the idle adjustment to compensate. The good thing is that these older trucks really aren't that complicated so I'm sure you'll figure it out soon.

I hope so lol. Luckily the rebuild kit is only $22
 
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Blue Chaos

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Well she's fixed! Two bottles of good ole Lucas upper cylinder lubricant carb/injector cleaner and all better. So I guess my dirty carb theory was correct.
 

Rustycowl69

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I had an issue, once, on my 76, or was it my 86. Anyway, the charcoal cannister disintegrated, and blew charcoal into the carb. Quite a sight. Have since heard that can occur from trying to get that last extra bit of gas at the pump and actually overfilling the tank.
 
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