The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Backfire

That's great. I was in the same boat as you thinking something had gone wrong with the points or condenser etc etc and it turned out to be that crap gasoline that was brown. Unfortunately the picture didn't post because there's something wrong with the site but the gasoline that came out of my truck looked like iced tea.

The knob on the distributor is called the octane selector. But what it does is advances or retards the timing in case of such an occurrence as you experienced. You got some really low octane fuel you retired the timing if you have good or high octane fuel you can advance the timing without having to move the distributor itself around. But if it was running fine before make a note of where it is so you can move it back after you clear out all of the crummy gasoline.

I put a little bit of marvel mystery oil or a bottle of Heet in the tank just in case there's any water in there from the crap gasoline you got. That's usually the problem with bad gas is water.