Cold start problems

My roommate has a 1973 450 SL with 98,000 miles. I'm thinging about purchacing.
It was not well maintained.It does have a new dist. cap, points, condensor wires and plugs. I replaced the fuel pump and all flex fuel lines from front to back (dry rotted and leaking). When the car is first started and driven it bucks like a bucking bronc. When it warms up the bucking stops but still lacks power (0 to 60 in 20 sec). On one ocasion when I started out cold from a dead stop the engine reeved to 3000 rpm and didn't move for a few seconds. It never happened again when it warmed up. Any sugestions would be helpful.

[Deltacom]

Originally posted by workinator
My roommate has a 1973 450 SL with 98,000 miles. I'm thinging about purchacing.
It was not well maintained.It does have a new dist. cap, points, condensor wires and plugs. I replaced the fuel pump and all flex fuel lines from front to back (dry rotted and leaking). When the car is first started and driven it bucks like a bucking bronc. When it warms up the bucking stops but still lacks power (0 to 60 in 20 sec). On one ocasion when I started out cold from a dead stop the engine reeved to 3000 rpm and didn't move for a few seconds. It never happened again when it warmed up. Any sugestions would be helpful.

Suggest to check the timing, vacuum pipes and ballast resistors.

After getting a meter and setting the dwell angle at 30 (that took about a hour) I went to set the timing with a light and it could not be done. The closest I could get was 5 degrees BTDC the proper setting is 5 degrees ATDC. Any help to pinpoint the problem would be greatly apreciated.

[Jerry Hudson]

It sounds like either your distributor cap is on backwards or the distributor shaft is not installed correctly. ( it may be off a tooth or two)