Summers I drive my truck, but no long distances. In June I filled the tank, but I have been traveling in July, so it stood still for a month. It ran great in June. I came back at the end of July from the states, it started poorly, whereas COLD it has always started great. (It has not ever started well when warm, even the PO confirms that.)
I had bought a Pertronix pointless ignition, so I installed that, also in early August. Last week I drove it on a round trip of about 40 miles. It still starts poorly, cold or warm. Once started it idles fine. But when accelerating it kicks and balks. Once it is up to highway speed 50 mph it does just fine.
The modern plastic gas filter looks clean enough. The truck is an otherwise stock 53 3100. The spark advance looks to be working. I suppose I should suspect the accelerator pump, but the carb was rebuilt 4-5 years back and has been ok ever since. Would it dry out over one month in the summer? The coil was new about 5 years back, too.
My old MC would have problems after the first startup in the spring. I always parked it for the winter with a full tank, but in the spring that gas was not always so good. When the tank ran down to maybe a quarter, the bad gas would make the engine run just like the truck is doing now. It seemed like the worst of the gas would float at the top of the tank. The truck is maybe a quarter or less full now. But some of that gas might be remnants of the full tank that sat there all winter.
The bigger question is - if gas goes bad after a couple of months, than a lot of us ought to be having problems. I have heard that gas lasts longer in a tank that is full, but if we keep our tanks topped off then we never burn off the old gas. I don't put a lot of distance on my old truck, although I drive it pretty regularly in the summer. So the gas will be old. How do we best deal with the aging gas problems in vehicles that we don't drive such long distances?
