Hi, this is my first post...ever. I wanted to see if anybody can help, and I really appreciate it if you can. This is going to be a long story, but I'll try to cut it down. I have a 1976 Corolla 2TC SR5 liftback. My dad was the original owner and it only has 75k on it, so it really means a lot to me to get this car running again. About a year ago, I came up to a stop and the car died. It wouldn't hold an idle. Anything below about 2500 rpms and it felt like it was out of time. Anything above and it ran perfect.
I checked my idle screw and it was fine. then I checked and replaced all of the vacuum lines. It still didn't fix it. I couldn't really tryto check the timing because of how bad it was running. Then I moved on to the carb. I changed the fule filter and had the carb rebuilt. After putting the carb back on, the car ran PERFECT! I timed it (10 BTDC), and it even idled perfectly at 850rpm. This lasted one day. The very next day, the same thing, I came to a stop, the car died. It ran like poop below 2500 rpms again and would not keep an idle.
I nursed it home, checked all my lines...nothing. I replaced the plugs. I replaced the wires. I checked all the connections. I pulled the carb, and had someone else rebuild it. The exact same thing happened. It ran great for one day (ran it for like 3 hours, starting, stopping, all over the town). Same result, ran like poop the next day below 2500 rpms.
I checked the points, and replaced them. I replaced the cap, then the rotor. Then I replaced the entire distributor, then the coil, then the resistor, then the ballast resistor, even the ignition module. Then I dropped the fuel tank and cleaned it out (it really wasn't dirty at all). I flushed the lines from the back to the front, front to the back. I replaced the fuel pump about 4 years ago, so I pulled it out and tried a leak down test on it to make sure the diaphram was still good. It was. I pulled the distributor back out, made 100% sure I was timed at TDC. Nothing helped. I got pissed and let the car sit for a few months (...and I was broke from spending all the $$).
About a month ago, I figured that since it ran great twice after playing with the carb (Aisan model 26353), that maybe some tiny particles were clogging one of the ventricles. I sent my carb out and had it professionally rebuilt, dipped, cleaned, etc. I just got it back and tried to put it on. First off I noticed that one of the gaskets was not the same as the one I previously put on from the rebuild kits I earlier used. Also noticed that there were 3 gaskets in the box and I can't figure where the third one goes. I made the mistake of not marking my vacuum lines the last time I pulled the carb off, and now I'm not 100% sure that I have them hooked up correctly (although I've tried them 20 different ways). The car won't run at all now. I can get it to fire for about 3 seconds, then it shuts off. :jamie: :jamie:
I guess I'm asking if anybody out there has any ideas that I might have missed or am I doomed to take it to some shady mechanic who might charge a forture to chase my corolla's ghosts? Also, does anybody have a detailed vacuum line diagram they might be able to send me? For some reason it is not in either of the original manuals I have and the pic under the hood is pretty faded. Please help!!!!! Thanks for reading my novel!