I'm gonna have to rebuild the carb on my sons car. I was thinking I had bookmarked a page on such a proceedure, but alas I can't seem to find it now. Anyone know of such a page(s)?? #7042210 QE 3201
The overhaul kit will have printed instructions for all the adjustments. All you have to do is to get it clean beforehand, and repair/replace defective parts such as worn throttle shafts/bushings, heavy floats, and leaking choke pulloffs.
Okay so I think I may have goofed. I took the carb off and set in cleaning solution prior to going to NE for Labor Day weekend. I figured I'd get it put back together when we got home. No such luck. Got sick and I'm just now getting to it. The grease/yuck is all gone but now there's a oily film that doesn't seem to want to come off? Even with soap/water?? The whole thing is now a dull gray color. So do I just scrub real hard lightly? And how do I get down in the small crevices? Or do I need to clean there?
Not sure what kind of carb cleaner you used but it sounds like it was either already greasy or a poor quality solvent. Good carb cleaner is not inexpensive but short of buying a new container you should be able to wash it real good with Castrol Super cleaner and a good aerosol carb spray. It can be recolored but the right way to do that is bead blast and etch it with the correct dip. You want to make sure all internal passages are thoroughly cleaned and clear. Blow it out real good with some compressed air.
I think I may have figured out the problem. I borrowed a cake pan from a friend to put the carb in to soak... it "was" teflon coated. lol On a good note my wife aka 'the best wife in the universe' is gonna allow me to use her electric rotary nail polisher to polish up the carb!
Just a quick note... this carb is about to kill me. I figured out today that I messed up and didn't put the choke linkage holder back on before I put the airhorn on... so we'll go with a manual choke cause I simply refuse to take the durn thing off for the millionth time.
^%$ (^ )(*&&^$# carb!!!!!!!!!!!!! I give up o No: I'm just gonna buy a new carb from Rock Auto and be done with this :af:
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I'm sorry but this thread's funny. Auto parts stores carbs are usually aren't worth a crap. What problems are you currently having? Maybe we can help. Or have a pro like John Osborne or Dave Hemker redo it for you.
:bla: I went through 3 quadrajets before I ended up with a correctly rebuilt one. I had some of the same problems your having, too. They are tedious and a pain to get clean and get back together correctly (for me at least...) When you finally do get one back together AND you didn't forget to put all pieces where they go AND it actually works, it's a good thing! Don't give up yet!
rofl... okay guys what's that old saying, "A dollar short and a day late". :grin: The UPS guy just dropped off our new carb from http://www.guaranteedcarbs.com/ The biggest trouble I had was my own fault. I took to many things apart and then couldn't get it back together without some really fancy jimmyriggen :spank:
Mine is an Edelbrock 850 cfm model. I used the Edelbrock rebuild kit, soaked it in carb cleaner, blew it out with compressed air and still have the same problem. It is surging at idle and the idle mixture screws don't do anything. Took me hours to get it back together using Edelbrocks sketchy instructions and pictures. I'm, going to send that sucker to someone who knows what they are doing this winter.
Next time, blow it out with aerosol carb spray, and VERIFY that the stuff sprays out of the other end of the passage you're blowing into. For example, if you're spraying into the idle circuit, it better spray out of the air bleed orifice at the other end of the passage. By the way, Ruggles' book on Q-jets covers the Edelbrock 850 Q-Jet RPM carb specifically. There are wonderful color photos througout. My only complaint with the new Ruggles book is that it's printed in Communist China; so don't expect the binding to last more than a couple of years. Buy it cheap, if you use it a lot you'll need to buy it again sooner rather than later.
Thanks for the tip on the Ruggles book. I believe that I had blown every passage really well but I did not use carb cleaner. Just compressed air. Thanks again.
Carl Sounds like your power piston spring is too stiff and not holding the piston all the way down at idle. Spring gradually moves up, engine speeds up, vacuum goes back up, power psiton goes back down, repeat cycle. If your mixture screws do nothing you are running on the transition curcuit--throttle blades too far open. Will probably need to modify idle curcuit to allow it to idle with less throttle
Thanks for the Info, Nicholas. This carb used to be on a 450 horse 470 and was modified to feed it. The current compression is about 1 to 1.5 points lower than the 470 was but it has the cam and street ported heads off of the 470. I tried lowering the idle speed until it would barely run and the idle mixture screws still did not have any effect. At 900 rpms, it pulls 14 to 15 inches of vacuum. I timed it for max vacuum then back it off as it was a little difficult to start when hot. I ordered the Ruggles book and will take another look at it when the book comes. Be glad to hear all suggestions you guys have! This thing is driving me nuts (but it is just a short trip).
Find a piece of ball point pen shaft, or a drinking straw, or the like, that will fit in the front vent. It should sit on top of the power piston, and you should be able to push down against the spring with the engine off about 1/8". Start the engine and watch to see what happens. It should drop and sit stationary at the bottom of its travel. If it cycles up and down, the spring is too weak for the vacuum the engine is making. If it doesn't go down at all the spring is way to weak.
