4 Wheel Drive/SUVs: fuel system or timing, vacuum line, vacuum advance

Question
QUESTION: having a problem with 1984 ram 150(gasoline engine).  crank it up and runs fine.when after placing the car in drive runs fine until i try to accelerate and it goes dead like its out of gas.  as long as i stay in first gear it runs fine
but when i try to accelerate into another gear it goes dead.  what could it possibly be and how do i fix it. thought it may be fuel filter but placed new one on, and truck still does the same thing.

ANSWER: Michael,

This sounds to me like timing. There is a vacuum actuator bolted to the distributor usually silver in color with one small vacuum line running to it. This is the vacuum advance, it advances the timing when extra power is needed like when you accelerate. The line will go from the distributor to the upper side of the carburetor. The way to check it is get a piece of clean vacuum line and plug it onto the distributor advance actuator and either suck on it like a straw or get a vacuum hand pump and try to pull pressure on it. If air sucks right through it, it is bad and will need to be replaced. All you do is pull off the distributor cap and there will be an "E" clip holding it to the ignition module. remove the clip and there will be a screw or 2 holding the actuator to the distributor housing,typically on the outside of the distributor. Replace in reverse order  DO NOT LOOSE THE 'E' CLIP!

Option -2 there may be some trash in you carb and it may need to be cleaned, this is a tedious process and a timely one. I would still lean towards the ignition causing the issue myself.

Try these out and let me know what else you find and we can better figure something out together

Thanks!
Matt

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: i can see where i am getting gas to the fuel filter, but i cant get it up to the carb.  i checked the line and it is clear, what could it possibly be?

Answer
If the truck has a block mounted fuel pump, it may be going bad. The carbs have screw in fuel filters where the fuel line connects to the carburetor sometimes but at this point I would chase the fuel pump. It will be on the side of the engine or somewhere mechanically driven. They are inexpensive and fairly easy to change as well so I would try it out

Matt