Alright. I took the Rochester Q-Jet off my 76 Chevy. Used a NAPA rebuild kit, rebuilt it and stuck it back together. Everything went to gether great. However now it wont start. I have fuel coming out of the pump assembly and the secondary. Could the float be stuck? Thanks.

Ryan

 

Sounds like flooding. Floats were really touchy on those things and the drop was critical too. Did ya set both (up and drop)? Just guessing here.

 

Rochester Carbs weren't the greatest in the world. It does sound like the float to me. You're really better off using it as a boat anchor and getting a Holley or a Carter.

 

Too light for anchors, saw one used as a paperweight at a wrecking yard once though.

 

well i forgot to adjust the float when i put it back in. so i am pretty sure that is the problem. i wont buy a holley though. :-) not a huge fan of em. i have been looking at edelbrocks 600-750. i dont want to over carb the motor. but i may be able to get my hands on a sb 400. if i do i will run a 800 and higher. but dreams i guess. anyone know where i can get a "cheap" edelbrock. napa wanted $350 and autozone wanted $299.

 

Edelbrocks tend to be tempermental too, but they are easily tuned. Holleys lose their adjustments after several years. You can find something wrong with any carb I guess, but when I put a new 650 Holley spreadbore on the Camaro, I became a beleiver in Holley.
Took away every bit of the coldnaturedness and flooding.

 

I spent a week one afternoon rebuilding a quadrajet, the sencondary accelerator linkages can be tricky. Seems like the float adjustments are the way to go now, hopefully you took pictures of the outside linkages, and saved the old parts, and can compare them in order to adjust the new ones. Good luck.

 

well didnt take pictures. but everything went back together the way i remember it. heh. everything still operated alright. primaries and secondaries opened fine. everything SEEMED ok. but hell. i guess not. lol. havent had time to take it off again since first post. i am still debabting between edelbrock and holley. more opinions wouild be great guys/gals

 

The quadrajet is probably the best carburetor ever built. It gets great gas milage on the primaries and leaves everyone in the dust on the seconderies. One of the big problems with the carb kits available from the stores are they still make the soft parts from black rubber and not blue rubber(resistant to modern fuel swelling).

Call Cliff Ruggles at
www.cliffsqjet.com

the guy rebulit my carb and I have been running strong for many years.

Dimitri

 

the best carb i ever had was a quadrajet on a 1971 chevelle ss 454,replace the float or weigh it to make sure it's not fuel saturated . got to check the float level ,float drop . the main and secondary jet well plug's do tend to leak .drill out the lead plug's for the primary jet wells and replace them with set screw's with red lock tite .use the aluminum seal kits to replace the secondary's . one trick i used if the throttle shaft is loose ,i used a 5/16 thin wall bronze valve guide kit to re-bush the throttle plate .