1962 Other Dodge Models car stutters and dies when it rains

KARAMBOS

MEMBER
1962 DODGE
6 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
45,000 MILES

I have a 1950 Dodge Special DeLuxe. It's a Plymouth, basically, but it's made in Canada. About 2 weeks ago a problem started occurring. This coincided with some wet weather we were having. The symptoms are these: when driving along, suddenly, instead of accelerating when I press the gas pedal, it stutters and delivers no power. Soon after, the car cuts out completely and won't start. When I say "won't start" what I mean is, the battery acts as though it's dead. It's a 6 volt car. Not 12 volt. It has a generator not an alternator.

I went to an auto electrician and he jumped started the car then removed the jumper cables. The car started and continued to run fine. When he took a reading across the battery terminals, it read just over 7 volts, which is normal for a 6 volt system. We then turned the car off and tried starting it again. It worked without the jump start several times, then died again on about the 5th attempt at starting. A jump start got it going again. He checked the generator, the regulator and the starter and said they were fine. He said the battery was at fault. So I went and bought a new battery. The car worked fine for a week and during the next bout of inclement weather, the same thing occurred.

Further things to note - I had a compression test done on the cylinders and one (the fourth) cylinder shows 60psi and the other 5 cylinders show 110. My mechanic says it's a sticky valve. This hasn't been fixed.

In addition, I checked the distributor cap and it's not cracked or worn and it's dry.

Any advice is appreciated.

1 Reply

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

If you are getting 7 volts it may be needing more juice. Every 6 volt system I remember checking always put out more, like 8 volts at least. Of course witha generator at idle that would be ok. If you have 60 p.S.I. On one cylinder then it's not a sticky valve, its' either a burnt valve or a piston/ring problem. I' d think a valve problem being a flathead. As far a s running and quitting whil eraining i'd think it may be something to do with the generator or a draw on the battery while shut down. Especially since it runs ok when dry. You could be getting water intrusion in the engine compartment. There should be pieces of rubber that hook from the fenderwell to cover the control arm area to stop that. You might have a poor wiring in the generator/regulator area as well causing this as well. It really needs to be looked at to give a better diagnosis.