1989 Dodge B350 15 Passenger Van

Everytime I start the van up and try to back up it dies on me. Sometimes it sputters a little going forward if you don't give it enough throttle and it has died on my wife a couple of times going forward like this. Any Ideas where I should start looking to solve this problem? Also, if anyone knows what the black canister is that is mounted on the engine not far from the distributor could you let me know what this is? Looks like some sort of vacuum canister but the lines are broken. I just bought this van so I'm not very familiar yet with it and plan on us getting aquainted this weekend or sometime this week if I have time. Thanks for any help.

Also, if it helps, the van also takes a few seconds to start when I turn the key.

That canister is the vacuum reserve reservoir. It's there to store vacuum to be used by the HVAC system during time of low vacuum such as when accelerating. Without this canister the airflow usually defaults to blowing out the defroster duct when accelerating.

Your stalling issue could be related to the broken vacuum lines going to this canister.

Having similar issues while backing up or first accelerating on an 84 B250 6cyl I just purchased.

I noticed that vacuum hose to the air cleaner is missing, is there a possibility of that causing similar issues due to the vacuum system being compromised? Still new to working on cars so I'm not sure how everything is interconnected yet.

Having similar issues while backing up or first accelerating on an 84 B250 6cyl I just purchased.

You problem is more likely a weak accelerator pump, assuming you have a carb and not throttle body injection. If you do have TBI then you need to have your fuel pressure checked. It should be 14-15 PSI at idle with the vacuum hose connected and 18-20 PSI with the vacuum hose disconnected.

As to the air cleaner vacuum hose, that was used to operate the flap inside the air cleaner snout. When the engine is cold, the flap should close off the intake forcing air to come through the riser off the exhaust manifold and warm up the engine faster. As long as it is plugged and not leaking, you shouldn't have a problem except possibly in the winter when the engine is stone cold.

You problem is more likely a weak accelerator pump, assuming you have a carb and not throttle body injection. If you do have TBI then you need to have your fuel pressure checked. It should be 14-15 PSI at idle with the vacuum hose connected and 18-20 PSI with the vacuum hose disconnected.

As to the air cleaner vacuum hose, that was used to operate the flap inside the air cleaner snout. When the engine is cold, the flap should close off the intake forcing air to come through the riser off the exhaust manifold and warm up the engine faster. As long as it is plugged and not leaking, you shouldn't have a problem except possibly in the winter when the engine is stone cold.

Thanks for the info on the accelerator pump. It looks like a cheap fix too, which is always exciting.

7300' elevation here, so the air cleaner bits are something that needs to get taken care of before the winter sets in. The flap and all the hoses from the vacuum nozzle are totally missing. The sensor and little arm that is supposed to move the flap are still there, though if they function or not is a mystery at the moment. I've been hitting up junkyards for parts, but not seeing a lot of the slant 6 engines and don't have the money for ordering fancy new or remanufactured parts at the moment.