Hey guys. Really bummed out after spending three hours trying to get my new truck going with no luck.
stock 350 with what appears to be a stock original quadrajet. I bought the truck and was able to hear it fire and run briefly by me pouring gas down the carb. Truck has been sitting 20+ years.
I took carb apart and found full of rust, float literally came apart and secondaries were pretty much seized. I totally took apart, soaked in carb cleaner and got everything like new clean and free.
Got a rebuild kit from quadrajetpower.com and put it all back together. I did drill out the plugs for idle air adjustment. Also punched out plug for part throttle mixture screw as well in hopes of being able to adjust without major disassembly every time.
I bottomed out the idle adjustment screws and backed out 2 turns to make them even and that seemed like a good baseline. Also backed out part throttle mixture screw 3 turns from what I found doing research.
the motor has good compression, good spark, clean plugs and good clean fuel and fuel pump. I can’t get the damn thing to run. It will fire but never catch. I’ve tried manually opening and closing the choke while cranking with little change. Sometimes it fires with choke open. Sometimes it needs choke closed and several pumps of the throttle. I can’t even get it consistent enough to figure out if I’m flooding it or too lean. Any of you guys have a tried and true set up to at least get the thing to run and then tweak from there?
this is my first q-jet. I’m a master diesel mechanic so I’m taking this a bit personal and a bit embarrassed I can’t even get this thing to run. I’m surely missing something simple. I also originally had the float too high and had fuel just pouring out of everywhere after the pump picked up fuel. I took the top off and bent the new float a bit to just eyeball fuel level and at least don’t have fuel overflowing but I know I have enough fuel in the bowl to at least start and run.
any ideas and help would be great.
Thanks!
Ben