Carb experts?

Is anyone in the club good at rebuilding old quadrajets? My carb has a leakdown issue that's driving me nuts in the mornings. I think the well plugs might need to be restaked, or it may be a gasket below the fuel bowl is leaking, but I know the bowl seems empty after sitting overnight.

bammax wrote:

Is anyone in the club good at rebuilding old quadrajets? My carb has a leakdown issue that's driving me nuts in the mornings. I think the well plugs might need to be restaked, or it may be a gasket below the fuel bowl is leaking, but I know the bowl seems empty after sitting overnight.

I have rebuilt many Holleys, and a couple of mid 80s qjets. One in an IROC, and one in a buick wagon.

What makes you think the bowl is empty? Is it hard to start? Remember with carbs, you have to pump it before starting. I can tell you if a holly bowl is empty, you will usually see fuel on the intake manifold.

Are you sure you don't want to go back to FI?

The first start of the day is a nightmare usually involving about 12 attempts to start it. After a few tries it will finally crank but then it sputters and dies. If I hit the gas while it's sputtering then it dies immediately. Once it finally catches then it idles rough and sputters until it's fully warmed up and has been idling for a while. The rest of the day it fires right up on the first crank, even faster than the Caprice ever did. That's what leads me to thinking the bowl is emptying overnight.

I just don't have the money for an Edelbrock carb with all its linkages and stuff right at the moment, so I'm looking for a quick easy fix until I get more money saved up for the manifold and carb and all that stuff.

And it'll get fuel injection once I find a good turbo 3.8 in my budget and then find the time to do the install

sounds like the choke pull off , open the choke up see if that helps and change the full filter in it

Replace the choke.

Edit: I see Bob beat me to it.

I was reading up on that last night and found a way to adjust the choke pull-off. I'm going to give it a shot when I replace the fuel filter later in the week. Hopefully that's all it needs for now. I'm not used to these type of carbs since I generally worked with more basic streamlined versions in the past (ie. edelbrock).

bammax wrote:

I was reading up on that last night and found a way to adjust the choke pull-off. I'm going to give it a shot when I replace the fuel filter later in the week. Hopefully that's all it needs for now. I'm not used to these type of carbs since I generally worked with more basic streamlined versions in the past (ie. edelbrock).

If the carb is bleeding down it's seeping past the plugs on the bottom (common failure). Take the carb off, dry it out, & J/B weld over those plugs, then let dry. Don't get that stuff on anything else tho.

I'm hoping it's the choke issue and not leaking down. I really don't want to have to rebuild the thing at this point. I've read that the leakdown issue was mostly resolved long before the ccc type carbs, which is what I'm running. Something about switching the plugs over to a screw in style or something back in the 70's. Of course that's all internet info and we all know how much trouble internet info can get you into

bammax wrote:

I'm hoping it's the choke issue and not leaking down. I really don't want to have to rebuild the thing at this point. I've read that the leakdown issue was mostly resolved long before the ccc type carbs, which is what I'm running. Something about switching the plugs over to a screw in style or something back in the 70's. Of course that's all internet info and we all know how much trouble internet info can get you into

More than likely that is refering to the plugs they started installing over the idle mixture screws on the front bottom of the baseplate (external). They ALL have the ones i'm taliking about.
I had '76 q-jet on the 350 I had in my 84 Gran Prix, and it had em when I rebuilt that one. I swapped it from a hot-air choke to electric when I rebuilt it.
Ahh the good old days

Well now that the temp is above freezing the car starts easier. It takes 8 pumps before it'll fire and stay running in the morning. Any fewer than 8 and it starts and then dies. The car still has a miss when it's not fully warmed up, but I'm hoping a full tune-up will take care of that issue. The choke seems to move ok from when I played around with it, but I'm far from an expert.