As part of my clean up of the left side of the engine on my Series III, I have the Air control block off and was surprised to see how dirty the inside of the plenum is.

I have pulled off the bottom vacuum cap, cleaned out the drain hole and am on my third can of carb cleaner trying to clean it out.

Wondering what causes it to get so dirty inside? It looks more like soot from exhaust than dirt from the intake.

 

I always thought the plenum was on the RH side of the engine???.

Dont forget that the terminology of RH and LH in the automotive industry has always been taken whilst sitting in the drivers seat (whichever side that is on) and facing the front of the car. Something drummed into me "loud and clear" back in about 1958.

The "muck" in there is from the engine breather/general engine blow-by, and in the USA from the EGR system (I think). Cleaning them out is such a special experience, enjoy the moment. That is why workshops have "apprentices", haha.

 

Grant is right, of course. Although there's no EGR on USA Series IIIs.

I wouldn't devote any additional time (or cans of aerosol carb cleaner) to the task. It's nice to clean out the worst of the mess on general priciples but the gunk will return soon enough and never seems to cause any running problems.

Cheers
DD

 

Why do I have the feeling there's a good story to go along with this ? :-)


Cheers
DD

 

Oh, there is!!! My 85 Ford Pickup was the first injected Ford truck. It was also my fost injected car, I think. I decided to clean it after reading of a design error causig unwanted crud there. I used a buch of carb cleaner and stiff brushes I got it clean, shining clean. But, I couldn't get the engine to start. Got it flat bedded to the local tech. They kept it a day. The guy said they had a h... of a time getting it to fire. Flooded to a fare thee well.

Friendly warning. Don't do it again. It rarely gets bad enough to bother the engine's running!!!

A classic of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

End of expected story.

Carl

 

Right side it is! I guess I am always posting my comments so late a night I don't know my left from right -- good thing I not driving at this hour.

The work is all done and the clean up inside the plenum went well. As I had the front jacked up, all the dirty carb fluid ran to the back of the plenum were it drained out the open vacuum port on the bottom side.

Engine started up right away and I noticed the rpm is just a little higher than before. I guess cleaning out all those passages means more air is moving into the TB at idle. Now I need to back off a little on the air control valve to slow it back to normal idle speed.