Last night was one of those times when you go backwards. The objective was to set the timing and do an idle adjustment, then a rough balance of the carbs to see if I could improve the idle to "acceptable."

Set timing to 10 deg BTDC and adjusted idle mixture. Still idling fast and rough.

Remember that I have not gone into the bases yet, only the cover and fuel block.

Both idle solenoids make a clicking noise.

Looked at carbs, discovered the following.

- Front is pulling gas out of the exit arm and down the primary barrel. Lots of air moving through.

- Rear, despite being as open as the adjustment can be made, has almost no air through the primary, but some through the secondary. Secondary throttle plate is slightly wet.

Tried to balance the carbs by closing the front and even had to adjust thottle stop to let it close more. Could not stop the flow from the exit arm without killing the engine.

Could not really open the rear because it was at its max adjustment.

Net result was loss of idle altogether.

Any ideas on what is going on? Diaphragm failure allowing the secondaries to open on rear? Obstruction or massive vaccuum leak in rear intake? Idle circuits obstructed? Maybe the rear adjusting mechanism is bent so it looks like it's changing the throttle plates but in reality is not.

Any suggestions/experience welcome!

BTW - still no action from the transmission. Am beginning to fear the worst - bad pump.

Chuck

Fuel spilling out of the carb like that means you're not running on the idle circuit. Either something is blocked inside that carb or it's just seriously out of wack.

You might as well adjust the front carb back to the point where it "works", so that you can concentrate on the rear carb.

One "short cut" for the car is to get it idling and then stick your hand over the throat of one carb and then hit the gas. Yes, it will want to suck your hand in, but it will also suck in a lot of air and fuel from the idle circuit and force some of the crud through too.

You should be able to diagnose the secondary throttle flap problem visually w/o taking the carb apart. But I'd have to see it in the flesh to explain. Arm-chair car repair only goes so far.

-CTH

Turns out that most of my problems were self-induced.

On the front carb. I used the wrong cover gasket and covered the air intake for the idle circuit. That was easy.

On the rear carb, I pulled the fuel block to check things out. Discovered that I had only loosely (really loosely) screwed the jets, and other stuff in. Tightened everything up and reinstalled.

Car started immediately and actually idled albeit too slow. No more fuel through the primary exit arm. Used your tip to clean out the idle circuit, and it helped a bit.

Did a "hand balance" of the carbs, since my flow meter has not come in. Basically stuck my hand over each and noted how fast and how much the engine speed decreased and made minor adjustments.

BUT - I am still handicapped by the fact that the rear adjustment is all the way out, and I think needs to go out more to get the adjustment right. I could not see any obvious fault with the mechanism or the linkage. Strange.

I have sort of put the carbs on hold to deal with the non-functioning transmission.

Chuck

Hey Chuck!

I've got a great idea.
Hurry up and finish your transmission job.

Then hopefully we will be at the same place with our carburetor tuning job and we can DO IT together!!!!! :)

~Christy