As the title says my son has aquired a 87 dakota. The truck had been sitting for about 2 yrs. Got the truck running and home. Replaced plugs, wires, coil, cap+rotor, pick-up in dist, all fluids, rebuilt carb, replaced fuel pump+filter. Now the problem truck starts and idles and runs fine then just randomly when your going up a hill it will start to loose power and surge the more throttle you give it the worse it gets. Sometimes it will die and others when you get on the flat it will straighten up and run just fine. Had the tank off to repair a crack in the bottom of it and am wondering if the pickup got messed up when it was upside down. Am at a lose as to what may be wrong. Any suggestion is appreciated. Thanks

 

My guess is that your not getting good fuel pressure. I'm not sure if the early models had an external fuel pressure. But check the fuel pressure. The other thing I can think of is maybe your timing is not advancing at higher RPM's. Don't know if yours has a vacuum or mechanical distributer advancement.