Fuel Deleivery problem

Okay i have a 83 ford ranger and pretty sure it is 2.0 1bbl carb.

got it running sat for 2 yrs and was able to drive home at reasonable speeds 25-50mph. on the last 1/2 mile she started coughin sputtering and acting like the engine died out. but was able to make it home.

thought the timing might of jumped as i hit one hell of hole on the way home and it didnt, okay floats on the carb are stuck. tapped the carb with a hammer no change. rebuilt the carb and she is getting the right amount of fuel now but she is backfiring and coughing not running right so i thought mabye i set it to far back so i loosend up the disrtb and turned it forward just a deg or so and it picked up the idle smoothed out and just started climbing in the RPM and wouldnt come down, i retarted the distrb and it came down and started coughing again. my father thinks the cat is cloged but the p/o hooked up the choke on the carb backwards, and had most of the vacuum lines disconnected and i traced them back and hooked them up in the right spots.

but any ideas why it wont be nice and smooth at idle? or if i turn the distrb one degree or so and it just climbs in to a no end of high rpm?

has new plugs, wires, rotor, cap.

on the drive over it had plenty of power dropped it from 3rd to 2nd and the back tires just spun like no prob and it through my heavy a$$ back in the seat.

edit:

went out and found out the carb was slightly loose allowing excess air into the system and tightend it down more, got it running smoothly at idle and returns to idle from reving the engine. but no power to it at all, my father thinks the cat is clogged up which may be. any other ideas?

fuel filter?

Have you actually checked the ignition timing with a timing light?

yes, one fuel filter was clogged and i changed it.

any one have a vacuum diagram for a 2.0l 1 bbl carb? on the 83 ford ranger???

The vacuum system on the 2.0 is a mess...I changed mine out to a different carb/intake from a 78 mustang and that cleared up most of my problems (similar to yours). Before I did that though I did get better performance out of mine after replacingthe distributor...there is a black ground wire that connects (not sure) but it turned out that this wire was not connected inside the distributor...it was just broken...when I changed the distributor it ran much better...but the 2.0 carbed setup is not worth fighting with...

If you can find one with less hoses and emission connections it works much better...straight bolt-on too...just a slight port mismatch on the 2.0 and 2.3 systems...

I have only 2.3, but mine's on the radiator crossmember. Has your truck been painted?

Autozone had vac diagrams for at least my '83 2.3 on their site awhile back, might try that out.

Brian

okay figured out the issue,

got another carb from a 2.0l 84 ranger 2x4 and it runs well, also the co2 component on the spacer was well f*cked up i removed that, and fabed up a peice of steel to put on it is place and it works well now, starts has alot more power now than it ever did.

it is running on minimal vacuum setup right now, (just distrb and half the carb.) runs well though. took a while to hunt down a carb, got a ranger for scrap and it had the same engine and what not, and was supposed to run, and i pulled the carb off of it and it runs fine now.