Hi everybody,

For those of you familiar with this legendary beast, it shall not be tamed, and since the Walrus is no longer available as a great source of info, I thought I'd turn to this trusted forum for assistance , on to the story and problem.

This Saturday, the Ozark Rollers had a club meet in Tulsa,OK, my Grandmother, mother my son and I, thought it would be a great idea to take the yellow Peril ,escorted by the green "T-Rex" v70, to the meet, since it had been recently resurrected after replacing a head gasket from a return from another meetup. About 35 mins into our hour trip to the big city, the car started sputtering. I could get some power by feathering the gas a bit but I was slowly losing speed dropping from 65 to 50, I flipped the hazards and exited the highway and at that point. We pulled into a auto salvage and the car sputtered to a halt, I was able to restart but it was idling really low maybe 400rpm (the Walrus has this one "tweaked" to idle about 1.6-1.8k, unsure why). as we came to a rest , Mrs.Walrus advised she saw a big puff of black smoke belch out from our tailpipe about the same time. We decided to try to continue on to the meet, I put the car in gear, and got about 200 ft and another big puff of black smoke and a decent backfire so the Yellow Peril decided, that was against the laws of her nature to go on, and we resorted to towing her home. Now here's the twist, On Sunday afternoon , go out to troubleshoot, maybe my fuel lines are having issues, maybe a compression issue, I put the key into the ignition and it started right up, I proceeded to see if i could replicate the sputter but was about to drive about town for about 20 mins to get her warmed up and it never happened, the car also got me to work this morning just fine , however that's only a quick drive about 7 blocks away, any ideas on what kinds of things I should be checking


TL;DR drove about 40 mins, got a black puff of exhaust,then a backfire and more black smoke on restart, towed home, SEEMED to work fine the next day/try

Thanks for any info on the problem

I haven't forgotten about you guys yet, I was able to check the physical connection and contacts in the TPS and wiring , I finally got ahold of the ohmometer and will be checking that out soon, will keep you posted

Firstly, just great to hear that the car is still cared for!

My first thought also was breaker points closed up. Indeed, by all means, rule out the easy stuff first, and in this case, ignition is easiest to sort.

How are the other cars? The 164 and 122 wagon? Hope they have good homes!

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-Matt I ♥ my ♂

For those unaware, the Yellow Peril is a 1973 145e with a b20e and D-jet fuel injection,

Easy stuff first. Sounds like the breaker point gap has closed up.
Check the manifold pressure sensor - see if you can draw air through it by mouth.

Thanks for the response!
I pulled the hose from behind the manifold side to the MAP and was unable to draw air through the hose, had a slight gassy taste, but no air

I would make sure the ignition system is working no matter what 1st because many carb & injection problems turn out to be ignition. Having read your symptoms, I would look at the TPS and the wiring at & near the TPS.

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69 142S Overdrive + 69 164S Manual

Forgive my ignorance, but just to confirm TPS is throttle position sensor, and do I just need to check the inside contacts are clean on TPS and wiring contacts look good wires aren't cracked as well

Yes, TPS is throttle position sensor and yes, clean the contacts. Sometimes you can get by using just a pencil eraser on the contacts.

I suspect you may have an engine temperature sender going. Realize that you have three of them. Not the one at the back of the block that is for the temperature gauge, but the one near the thermostat housing that controls the ECU.

Then again, there is also the temp. sender that is in front of the radiator and senses ambient temp.
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"Differences of opinions should be tolerated, but not if they're too different' - Sharon Craig

awesome, thanks! I'll get under the hood tomorrow and check it out and followup with the progress