[sgwilson904]

Mea culpa! My bad--and my apologies--for not keeping up with more-frequent progress reports on this on-going mystery. Here's the latest:

I can't believe they're still speaking to me but with the continuing patience and help of fellow club members here in Jacksonville, we've checked and re-checked many of the good tips offered here...and everything else we can think of. Not only has nothing seemed to have worked, now we're at the point that when we address one issue, we make things even worse or seem to create a new problem.

For instance, still believing our problem was electrical, we decided (after installing another member's distributor and the truck ran very well) that we'd totally rebuild my distributor with all new parts. Our club president was gracious enough to do that himself but even STILL the sputtering problem persisted and, in fact seemed worse.

Needing a back-up distributor anyway, I got a brand new one from Snyder's. When we installed THAT, we couldn't even get a SPARK to start the engine. In sheer frustration, we re-installed my original, rebuilt distributor, checked for spark (which we had) and it fired right up and ran great...for about 10 minutes when the original problem returned. The thing stuttered and jerked and refused to go more than 5 mph, acting like it was running out of fuel.

Replacing the carburetor with one known to be working 100% did not solve the problem. Now, even my ever-so-patient and much-more-experienced club buddies are all joining me in throwing up our hands. This near-total disgust led to a halt in the repair proceedings for a while. Nobody wanted to hear about and I didn't want to think about it.

Still, I'm not ready to surrender entirely. It's now become a matter of pride and sheer determination not to be beaten by this old truck. Fortunately, there's one more fellow in our club, one of the few that I have not already bothered with this mess. He is highly regarded as "the guru" for All Things Model A and has graciously consented to take a close look with "fresh eyes" starting next week.

With his many years of experience and expertise, he's going to methodically check everything he knows to see what we must have missed in following all of the leads and advice so many of you have offered here. I'm hoping he'll let me watch because I am dying to know where I went wrong in the search.

I'm now thinking if "the guru" can't find the root of this problem, the thing must be possessed by some kind of demon. I had the Pope all lined up to perform an exorcism on the thing and then HE quit! I was ready to just push it over a cliff but that's no solution either. I'm in FLORIDA, remember, and we have no cliffs here! (Maybe drive if off the pier down the block?)

Anyway, I'll keep you all posted...and if he determines it to be something that one of you first identified as the problem in one of the more than 200 suggestions posted here already and I missed it, I'll make good on my original promise of some kind of a prize.

Everybody keep your fingers crossed...and keep your ideas and questions coming!