Hard start and loss of power.

I have a 1992 U42T with the 3G83 engine. I posted last year that someone had run me off the road into a small body of water and the engine hydrolocked. The problems I face today seem to have originated with that issue. Immediately after hydrolocking the engine, the plugs were pulled and replaced and the cylinders were dryed out and lubed. I have since replaced the distributor cap, rotor, plug wires, fuel pump, and fuel filter. The carb has been cleaned thoroughly and the fuel tank and engine oil have been treated with Seafoam. Now for the problem. The vehicle is hard to start when hot, will pop and hiss while cranking the engine, it will run like crap for a while and will stall when accelerator is pushed. When it finally starts to idle smoothly and has decent throttle response it will run great, then in third gear it will start bogging down and losing power at more than half throttle. Any idea what is causing this? The only thing I can think of is a tear down and rebuild, and I REALLY don't want to go down that road. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

Sounds like water got inside the distributer and rusted your advance weights,or a vacuum leak

 

Would I be able to use penetrating oil to loosen them up? I have a can of PB Blaster that does wonders to frozen bolts. Would that work, or is there something else I should do?

 

yeah pb blaster is fine

 

Thanks again. I truely appreciate your help.

 

No vaccuum leaks and the weights do as they're supposed to. It just occurred to me that the timing may be off a little. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a timing light and check it.

 

have you checked compression and valve clearance...doesn't seem like it would cause your symptoms other than the hard start and lack of power,but the good idle doesn't fit in...you could also check the exhaust for a plugged cat-con....has it been running fine since the dunking and just started acting up?
valve clearances
in .006 cold and ex .009 cold

 

I still haven't had any luck finding someone with a timing light. The hard starting problem is gone and I have most of the power back. It still has the issue of bogging down a bit under accelleration, but it's not near as bad as it was. The cat-con has been gutted. I haven't done anything with the valves as of yet.

 

Sorry for reviving a dead post, but I found the issue. There was a leak in the intake gasket and the screen in the gas tank was plugged up pretty bad.