THANKS!! and a huge plea for some help....

maybe when you are driving your tank is kicking up drugs into the strainer limiting the fuel flow. is your fuel tank clean on the inside free of debris.

Drugs are bad, mmmkay...

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Thanks Sin and h0tr0d. Guess I will have a list of things to do on my off days next week. Because it ran fine for the better part of a week after the carb change and then almost 2 days this week after working on the fuse box, I racked my brain today trying to think what I could of possibly done to help the problem. I could only think of one thing so tonight on the way home I disconnected the battery for a few minutes while I ran in the store. Up to that point it had stuttered some and the temp gauge had not worked at all. For whatever reason, after reconnecting and starting the truck the gauge started working. After only driving for about a mile or so, and before getting back on the interstate it wasn't working again. It worked sporadically for a while, but at one point I pulled over when it wasn't working and disconnected the battery again and it again started working briefly. The stuttering still occurred (also sporadically) this whole time. Out of curiosity, when I got off the interstate and came to a stop sign, I cut the ignition off for a moment and upon restarting it,the gauge started to climb briefly but went back down again before reaching true temp. Stopped at another stop sign and a light before getting home and did the cut off both times with the same results both times..... Tried the quick key cut off a couple of times when it was stuttering with no change with how it was running. Don't know about the gas tank. I have never had it off. The old filter I took off the other day when I put the pressure gauge and regulator on had no visible signs of crud in it. I only changed it because I had a new one here I was going to put on when I changed the carb and forgot.
Thanks Again
Chuck

What is this? It had a vac line on it before the carb change coming from (I believe) the servo diaphram but that was removed along with the carb so I plugged it. I also "lost" a line going to what I think is called the vacuum amplifier. (these names are coming from a vac diagram I found on line and are in the approx areas on the diagram as they are in my truck) I believe the pic below could be what is referred to as a 3-way solenoid valve? Could either of these be my problem? Going to do some searching of these names on here as soon as I post this....

Problem solved!!! (I think--LOL) After posting that I had changed the filter the other night, I kept having a nagging feeling. At work yesterday my sometime memory finally kicked in. The filter I said I had changed was a small filter that is on the fuel line just before the carb. I completely forgot about the original filter between the tank and pump. I went out and looked at it and was totally shocked:


It can't even be seen through holding it up to a light:


It literally weighs about a pound. The sad thing is, even though I had forgotten about it, I had actually changed it out last year when I started having the original problems (it looked nothing like this). Guess I am going to be dropping my tank and doing some cleaning..... Long story short, I went and got a new filter yesterday and put it on before leaving work last night. All the way home last night, to and from work today running 65-70, and not a single studder..... Temp gauge still works when it wants to so I guess I will try a new sending unit for that. Thanks to all of you that made suggestions, and especially a big thank you to you h0tr0d for getting me to think about filters....Amazing how often it is the simplest things......

LOL usually it is the simple thing. I know I didn't help but glad you got it fixed and thanks for sharing. I'm sure someone else will stumble upon this someday and it will be their fix too!

WOW....the founder....I'm honored....and you are welcome!! Will try to do a better job of checking in (actually I do but without signing in/posting) from time to time even when I'm not experiencing a problem.....

Yep.......your fuel tank is rusty on the inside. The fuel filter will catch most of it, but you probably have a bit of the finer particles sitting in the fuel bowl of the carb right now also. This is a second gen stock carb, and the carb was cleaned once before but after running it with a new fuel filter and a rusty tank, here's what was getting past the fuel filter.......



What did the fuel tank look like on the inside? Glad you asked!

...........

Earl.....U-G-L-Y..... Yeah, I figured I probably had some junk get by. The smaller filter by the carb is really clean so I'm hoping..... So, was/is the tank repairable? Looks to me the only solution is to replace......