Yes. Find an old spring with a wire diamter of apprx .030". Straighten it out till you have a straight peice at least 2" long. Use it to "rod" out both idle tubes. I do NOT recomend this practice, or drilling them with long precision drill bits without removing them from the casting. The problem we see, is that any debris you knock loose will go down into the blind passages under the tubes. It may not come out when compressed air is blown in thru the tube(s), and end up getting sucked back up into the tubes, usually at the worst possible time, like when you are staging your car in the lights at the final round of a big race! I recomend to take the time to pull the tubes, and clean size them per/for the application. While they are out, you will have access to the passage they are pressed in to for cleaning......Cliff PS: I actually make a lot of money because folks fail to pull the idle tubes during rebuilding. Believe it or not, we get complete units sent here, that were just COMPLETELY restored, with zinc/chromated castings and plated parts, where the idle tubes were never removed from the castings. Many of these castings were bead blasted for cleaning with fine glass beads, and piles of the glass will be trapped under the idle tubes!!! Imagine how much got sucked into your new engine before you figured out the carb just wasn't going to work correctly?
Cliff, I probably should have said this earlier but after I had the carb rebuilt the secondary spring on the old plate snapped! As I write this I have had a new base plate from GM installed (metering screws and all) so I'm not sure if my problem is what everyone has given advice on. The base looks new as far as I can see but that doesn't mean it can't be clogged, correct? I'm gonna fiddle with things on Fathers Day when I can ask to be left alone without offending the family. I have found that playing with these cabs requires ones undivided attention. Thanks for all the info!!!
