UPDATE: Grillin'...

A lot of confusion and brain-sweating has occurred since the last Maxi update.  It is hard to put it all into type!

I managed to take the car on a 60 mile round trip with no issues.  Then, a few days later, the car made it about 2 miles before it started sputtering again, and I had to nurse it back home.  All I did was stop in a parking lot to check the transmission fluid.  When I started the car up again, it was not running right.  I started thinking maybe it was running out of gas.  But that was not the case.

I decided that since I had one, I'd install a new fuel filter, as now it seems modern fuel may be playing a role in this mess.  It is well known that ethanol can mess up rubber fuel lines, etc.  I figured changing the filter would be a cheap and easy project, and so I did it. 

It was a boiling hot day, and since I was already drenched, I decided to swap out the car's radiator grille with the one I had restored last year. 

There were a lot of small screws to remove.  They are all rusted, but came out easily (They were all treated with WD40 before I put them back).  First the black metal top support came off.  Then the screws holding the headlights buckets in.  A few more random fasteners, and the grille was loose.  Next came a lot of internal swearing.  I couldn't get the headlight buckets or grille out!  Long story short, I looked at the AMC repair manual, and sure enough, I was supposed to remove the hood latch.  Once I did that, things worked out.

The repaired grille went back in with little difficulty.  The headlight buckets got a quick coat of semi gloss black paint to match them to the grille.  The original turn signal assemblies were installed, and now the car has a fresher face! 

Then Todd showed up and started messing with the distributer.  He got the engine to idle better, then tried to get the carburetor tuned a bit better, as it has never been quite right.  One thing I noticed when he was giving it the gas in the driveway was that the flapper in back, what I think are the secondaries, seemed to either stick or not open all the way, resulting in a "skip", or "bogg". 

I drove the car a little tonight, when the sun was going down and it was only 80 degrees instead of 90 outside.  I managed to drive around for about 15 minutes without issues, but it is hard to drive around here with the gas pedal... bumpy side roads, slow Sunday drivers... you end up coasting most of the time!!!  I hope to go for another ride soon, to see if it can be driven to some local shows coming up.