Hey, I have an '80 long bed with a 20R and a 5 speed with around 170k (Possibly 270) on it.

When i bought the pickup a few months ago for $200, the front end was worn out. Like, turn the steering wheel 2 1/2 turns before anything happened worn out, so i rebuilt that. Now I'm on to the carburetor issue. It runs fine and everything, except when you give it say, more than 1/3 throttle. It coughs and sputters and tries to die out, which is really annoying and embarrassing. Plus, I'm only averaging 12 MPG in town, which I think is a bit low. What kind of gears did these things have?

When you ease into it, it will take more throttle than that, it just takes it a while to get there. I've cleaned the carb out and it doesn't have any blocked passages, so i'm starting to wonder if some linkage isn't right or sticky. Any ideas?

I want to fix and run the stock carb for the moment, but I eventually want to put a Weber on it. I have 2 Weber 32/36's (If I remember correctly) that I bought at a swap meet for $30 on a Z intake and i had them on my 260z for a while, but now have a 4bbl on it so they're available to use.

Is it hard to adapt a Weber to the stock intake? I know it's common practice on these things as the stock carb seems to be crap. What kind of difference is there with the mileage?

Also, does anyone have a good ac compressor they would sell? Mine has a reman compressor on it, but the clutch wont kick in, even when sending 12 volts directly to it.

Sorry the post is so long, just thought I would get it all out.

Thanks!

 

For my 20r intake I used a transdapt adapter to fit my weber 38, it'll work fine with your 32/36. I'm very happy with it and it cost me around 50-60$ total from summit. I'm running around 17-18mpg overall driving not always nicely, once got 23 mpg highway doing 55. So you may have an issue with the carb, maybe your distributor vacuum advance, maybe juste a fuel problem like a clogged filter. Have you done a tune up as in rotor/cap/plugs (check colour for lean or rix mixture), valve adjustements, fuel filter, etc? I suggest putting on the weber, follow closely the tuning instruction in the official weber thread on here and do a good tune up, should run like I champ I heard a healthy 20r runs real strong.

The gears should be 4,10 in 1980 I think, I had 3,90 in my 81 and picked up 4,37 gears from a 79, I think the rest was 4.10.

 

Did you ever check the mileage prior to swapping to the Weber? I assume that adapter comes with the linkage to hook up the throttle as well. I'll look into it. I may be able to fabricate it myself.

I haven't done any kind of a tune up on it since I bought it, and I know that's probably a big part of the mileage issue. Ill inspect the plugs and the rotor. The wires don't look all that old, but i know that doesn't mean anything. I'll need to look into how to preform a valve adjustment on it.

It has a new fuel filter on it, and a clean tank. The issue it had when i bought it was that it would run forever just idling, but once you started moving and sloshing what was in the tank around it would run out of fuel. Cleaned the tank and got about 3 lbs of sediment crap out of it, put a new fuel filter on it, and that problem was solved. It may have had a little sediment left in the system so i'll probably change the fuel filter again

I found a site that tells you how to decode the ratio in dropzone's sticky of helpful stuff. It has a 7.5 rear end and 4.10 gears.

Thanks for your reply.

 

Plug wires look fine, it has almost new looking NGK plugs that are just about the perfect color. I'll adjust the valves when I change the timing cover seal.

I adjusted the carb some and got it acting a bit better.

 

I didn't check the mileage before, it was roughly the same but with much less power, the weber 38 is not meant for fuel economy though, the 32/36 is. Adjust the valves at .008 int .0012exh when hot, if they are too loud for you, adjust them at .007 .011, that's what I did. There is a way to check the resistance of the spark plug wires with a multimeter, you need to check the value in the fsm. Yes you should change the fuel filter again and check the sock in the tank if you haven't already, good luck!

 

Great info. Thanks.

Ill adjust the valves and check the resistance. Changed the fuel filter, and there is no sock in the tank. I assume it fell off and disintegrated because there was no trace of it.

Thanks!