1983 Chevy Van Won't Start
February 3rd, 2012, 11:34 AM
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1983 Chevy Van Won't Start
Hello everyone. I have an '83 Chevy Beauville with the 5.7 L V8. This van sits for weeks at a time and recently I have tried to start the van, but not had any success. I will explain what I am experiencing and I welcome any thoughts you may have.
A little background, this van has always had trouble with cold starts. Seems you have to press the gas pedal to the floor in order to get it to fire up and stay running. But recently that isn't even working. My routine is to pump the gas pedal once and turn the key. I did that last night and nothing happened. So next I pushed the pedal to the floor and cranked it over and it does fire, but really only a sputter and will not stay running. After trying this a few times I do get the smell of gas and after pulling the dog house cover and air cleaner off I tried to start it again. This time it did start and ran for 1 minute or so and then started sputtering again and died.
I'm thinking it is fuel related so my plan is to take some starting fluid and squirt it into the carburetor. I figure if it fires up then I know its fuel related. However, I welcome any comments and suggestions. If it fires on starting fluid I plan on looking at the fuel lines to see if all are in good condition. Perhaps the gas smell is coming from a cracked fuel line or something.
Anyway, any help is greatly appreciated.
A little background, this van has always had trouble with cold starts. Seems you have to press the gas pedal to the floor in order to get it to fire up and stay running. But recently that isn't even working. My routine is to pump the gas pedal once and turn the key. I did that last night and nothing happened. So next I pushed the pedal to the floor and cranked it over and it does fire, but really only a sputter and will not stay running. After trying this a few times I do get the smell of gas and after pulling the dog house cover and air cleaner off I tried to start it again. This time it did start and ran for 1 minute or so and then started sputtering again and died.
I'm thinking it is fuel related so my plan is to take some starting fluid and squirt it into the carburetor. I figure if it fires up then I know its fuel related. However, I welcome any comments and suggestions. If it fires on starting fluid I plan on looking at the fuel lines to see if all are in good condition. Perhaps the gas smell is coming from a cracked fuel line or something.
Anyway, any help is greatly appreciated.
February 6th, 2012, 12:00 PM
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UPDATE - I spent a few hours over the weekend working on this van. The starting fluid did not seem to have any effect on the way the van would ran, same as what I explained below. I decided to pull one of the spark plugs and it was very black and very wet so I decided to replace all of the plugs. After doing this I was able to get the van to run for a while, but it started sputtering again but not as bad as before. I decided to try to take a spin around the block and as soon as I pulled out of the parking spot it died again. Since I already had the parts I decided to replace the coil, distributer cap and rotor, but this did not make a difference.
Any thoughts? I'm stumped and considering having it towed to a mechanic to diagnose the issue.
Any thoughts? I'm stumped and considering having it towed to a mechanic to diagnose the issue.
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Jbyrum (December 24th, 2020)
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