ClassicCar

I inherited a 1954 Ford Customline with an I-6 engine last year .. the car is almost completely original and has about 31,000 original miles.



Initially, it would drive and run great for a while, but then stall out after a period of drive time ... it felt like the engine was starved for gas. A mechanic friend of mine took off the little rubber fuel line that feeds into the mechanical fuel pump and found that it would barely pass any fuel at all.... Got a new one and put it in. Seemed to help a bit, but the Carb still didn't seem to be working very well, stalling out a lot ... the mechanic said I really needed a new carb.



I did some research and found that you can't really buy new carb's for these cars and that you have to get yours rebuilt, or buy another rebuilt carb. I went ahead and sent mine in to Mac's Antique auto parts to have it rebuilt. While it was out, I also replaced the steel fuel line that goes from the fuel pump to the carb.



Carb came back looking great... Installed it ... big problem though - the carb bowl completely fills and overflows all over the place every few minutes... I looked around and figured out how to adjust the float and did that ... I was able to get the car to run for a while sometimes with the float adjusted so that even the slightest movement upward cut off the incoming fuel... but it still overflowed quite often (and stalled the car. making a mess)



I decided that maybe I just needed to get another carb - I went online and found a really nice 1904 Holley Carb ... ordered it, installed it, and within 2 minutes of starting the car, overflow again!!!! Gas is coming out the top of the carb (round thing) and all over the place by the bowl gasket. I opened this one up and adjusted the float so that only slight movement upward would cut off the fuel, but that didn't seem to do anything ... 1 minute of running and it overflowed onto the floor again. This carb looks absolutely brand new .... I mean really nice.



So ... I'm a bit frustrated.



It seems like maybe there is way too much fuel pressure coming into the 1904 carb , and that its pushing fuel in even when it shouldn't be .... that seems to make sense, but I guess I don't understand how this carb ever would have worked new then?? Surely they didn't all run this poorly when new



Where should I go from here?

- Get a third carb? (ugh)

- Get another type of carb? (are there better carburetors that I should try rather than use a holley 1904?)

- Replace fuel pump or install some sort of fuel pressure regulator?



Thanks!!! any suggestions would be greatly appreciated !