I recently just became the proud owner of a 65 Mustang, and am using this experience to broaden my knowledge (or lack there-of) of working on cars. Being as I'm new to this whole field, my problems/questions may just be simple and easy ones, so no judging .

Last week I pulled my car out of winter storage, and she's for the most part been running pretty smooth. She has the original 289 v8 in her. Several times this week though, while waiting at a stoplight and once while driving, she's tried dying on me out of no where, and I honestly don't know where to start at trying to fix this. I'm wondering if the fuel/air mixture is off maybe? It did it to my friend while he was driving too, so it's not just me or my driving style.

Thank you for any input

 

My 65 289 hates stale gas. I parked it in November and even filled the tank and put fuel stabilizer in it. Still ran badly when I started driving it in April. Once I got through that tank and put in some good no-ethanol premium it perked right up.

 

I agree with using ethanol free fresh gas, I have a website saved that gives locations across the country if you'd like. Most original tanks have a drain screw at the front right corner of the tank to make it easier. I backed mine on ramps to get a 5gal. can under it and drained with a funnel/hose into the tank then poured that in the beater to burn.

When was the last time you did a tune up? Points/cond., plugs, fuel filter, PCV, bottle of fuel cleaner in the tank?
Check ALL your vacuum lines, any that show cracks when you bend them need replacing or if you've never replaced them. There is a short rubber vacuum line at the front/back of the auto trans line going to the rear of the trans (90*hose) that almost never gets replaced and will cause a vacuum leak at the modulator.

Test your vacuum advance on the dist. to see if the diaphragm is still good as that is also a vacuum leak if it's dried out. Take the dist. cap off and suck on the hose that goes to the vac. adv., you should see the arm in the dist pull into the vac. adv. If it doesn't move it's bad, you can get replacements from parts store or online, you may need the dist. number off the side of it- 'C4XXXX

Turning screws on the carb randomly is the last thing I would do as you may end up in worse shape, you need to look up tuning instructions for the model carb you have to know what to adjust, how much and how to put it back to stock settings.

Jon

 

I brought my car to a friends friend who is totally into Mustangs, and it ends up the cap and rotor had to be replaced, along with the pvc valve. After replacing both of those a few other small adjustments, she run a whole lot smoother now.

Thank you for all the input