Speed won't go over 55mph, hesitates on acceleration

[weretrees]

Hello, My rv is running good but seems a bit to slow. I cant get it over 55. I dont think the secondaries are kickin in. it hesitates a little on acceleration too. Im still lookin into replacing the Holley thats in there with a new one in hopes that it will perform better. I have had the carb rebuilt twice buy a shop. First shop did it wrong and the 2nd one Im not sure all that they did. I had it towed out of there. Im thinking about buying new one and rebuilding the old one myself for a spare. Its been fun messin around with this old bago.

[ClydesdaleKevin]

Could be a lot of things with a 73 413.  We had a 72 with similar problems.

Could be your points and condensor...yep, those old beasties had points, although they switched over to electronic ignition in later years.

Ballast resistor could fail, but that would mean total engine failure, so its not that...although its a good idea to have an extra one on board.

Could be the advance mechanism in the distributor...and/or bad cap and rotor.  Check to make sure the weights are freely moving and the vacuum part works.

Could be plug wires...ours ran, seemingly fine, but had no power...realized one plug wire had melted all the way through.

Could be vapor lock.  I changed the gas caps on ours and had all kinds of power loss and stall issues at speed...turns out I got the wrong kind of caps...those old 413s need vented caps, not non vented ones like the ones I bought.

And it could be your carburetor like you said...but if you go with another Holley, get a new one...don't trust their rebuilds.  They build great new carbs, but suck at rebuilding.

The above are the issues we had with power loss on our 72 413...each fix gave us a little more power, and by the time we fixed all of the above, it was running fine and pulling hills at reasonable speeds.

Until the exhaust manifold started leaking bad on the driver's side.  Then it was not only really loud, it lost a lot of power again.

Kev

[Wantawinnie]

Check your accelerator cable setup as well. If it is not opening up the carb enough you may think you have it floored and only getting partial throttle response. On the trip home from purchasing my Winnie it did not seem to have the power I expected. After getting home I noticed it was only getting about 3/4 of the travel it should have because the foot pedal was mounted wrong after the carpet was replaced by a previous owner.

[weretrees]

Well, I put a new Edelbrock carb on it. Took it for a ride and she did great. Was going 55 up hill. Im not sure about the flats she still seemed a little slow. But ran so much better. But then on the way back I was going slower up hill and when I got home the trans was hot. Dipstick was crazy hot and fluids bubbly. Engine running warm too. I also noticed less gas in the fuel filters. Brand new filters and clean tank. Steal and rubber lines. Im going to change trans filter and top off. flush engine and radiator with some flush and try again. I have new plugs and cap and rotor. Im also thinking about rerunning the fuel lines and insulating them better, with all the talk of vapor look on the forum. I may need to replace exhaust manifold gaskets too. Any suggestions? What are the best gaskets to get?

[Oz]

Copper gaskets seem to be the best choice according to members' recommendations.  Message Search - exhaust manifold gaskets.  That's a frequently needed item and the posts give you different kinds, recommendations and sources.   

[weretrees]

thanks Mark.