The marvels of carburetor cleaner

[LKTraz]

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Friday on the way home from work my throttle began to get sticky. Not fully stuck mind you but very slow to release.

I pulled over and as I had my head buried under the hood one of my friends spotted me and pulled in to see if he could lend a hand. I mentioned that if I just had a pair of needle nosed pliers I could make an adjustment to the throttle return spring and be good enough to get home with no major issues. Sure enough he had a pair.

I stretched the spring and re-bent the end so it had more tension to pull the throttle off. It worked but it was still a little sticky so I figured that I'd need to clean and re-lubricate the carb.

I just went out and did it and to my shock discovered that it was so gummed up that the secondaries weren't even functioning on it!

This is a Rochester Quadra-jet four barrel. I wondered why the truck was a bit sluggish when I floored it to climb a big hill.

I sprayed the entire carb and linkage and even shot some down the carb with the truck running and the throttle part open.

WOW! What a difference!!!!!!

I took it for a ride and it now idles more smoothly as well as goes like hell when I dump the pedal.

The moral of the story?

A little bit of carb cleaner goes a long way toward performance improvement!

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Capt. Fugly is still sporting a carburetor? I wish they never went with fuel injection. I found cars are actually more efficient, powerful and responsive with a carburetor instead.

Good to know that can of Gunk worked for you. did you use Gunk?

[LKTraz]

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Nope. I have industrial carburetor cleaner from Castle Automotive Products.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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show off :p

[LKTraz]

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In anticipation of replacing the carb I just cleaned up I did a bit of pricing at Advance Auto.

MAN has it been a while since I priced carbs!!!!!!!!! REBUILT Quadrajets are going for $449.00


I was expecting $150 - $200.

The manager (god I just love that gal) did some rooting around and found me a NEW Holley 500 cfm that goes for $279.00. That's more like it!

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Damn, I guess they're considered rare or 'antique' parts now! $449 is a ripoff!

Take the Holley, it's better than a genuine GM anyway!

[LKTraz]

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Yeah......I don't need a QJ that bad!

I don't care if it's Rochester, Holley, Carter or Edelbrock, $449.00 is insane for a rebuilt carb. Shit, I can buy a brand assed new Holley Dominator 1100 cfm for just over $1000.00.

Thye pisser is that the rebuild kit for the QJ is only $20.00 but there is no replacement parts for the electronic choke module (which is...you guessed it...shot on mine).