2 different vehicals with the same 1406 4 bbl. carb. Both of these cars & carbs have been running great for the past 4 to 5 years. Winter is really here now so it's time to take them off & see whats going on. Run good cold but stumble & don't idle smooth anymore. Anyone have the same problem & what is the fix? Is ethinol gas eating up my aluminum carb from the inside out.
clean em out. i love these carbs because people never clean em so they run like **** and sell em for $40
Nice to hear all this before I have problems! I've had several and never had a problem yet, but I hear horror stories all the time... makes me a little nervous!
i actually have 2 1405's sitting in the corner that i bought cheap from a parts house{they were tampered with}and was wondering if their worth a ****?
Is the cleaning generally to remove jelly/varnish, or particle type contamination? If particles, I'd change the type of fuel filter to one with a lower micron rating. The Wix website generally shows the rating on theirs. I've been fighting carb flooding on an old BMW motorcycle. The first symptom is Riding along all of a sudden one foot starts to feel cool, before feeling wet, then rough running the first time I ignored the cold foot. The inline filters the bike shop uses are small, clear, and always look clean, but let tank rust particles etc get into the carbs. I got some bigger clear filters for John Deer lawn equipment that look gross in a day or 2 because they turn brown from catching the very **** I don't want in the carbs. A long time ago AC semi clear GF-454 won a "shoot out" in a Dirt Bike magazine for good flow in a gravity system, and actually catching ****. They're steel now. WIX says their modern equivalent (33027) is rated 50 microns. 50 microns is about 0.002" Wix 33011 is a clear inline rated 12 microns
I'm running filters before & after the fuel pump that should be enough to keep it clean. Both are in the warm ba*****t now. I'll give them a fisical as soon as they & me warm up, 11* above zero here in Wi. this morning. Was 40 in the garage.Need a bigger furnance.
I ***umed my float sticking, rough idling, etc were due to ethanol sitting too long in combination with a shop that is uninsulated and often unheated or cooled. I figured the ethanol was allowing condensation to form and grow crud. I have had to pull Edelbrocks apart that had less than four thousand miles on them. The crud I find looks like something you'd find in old house plumbing. I tried Stabil and it didn't seem to help. This post is making me wonder now if it's the ethanol in combination with Edelbrocks metal or anodizing.
If the stuff your seeing in your carbs is white in color it's probably sulphate(aluminum rust) caused by water. A little acid will clean it up I use bathroom bowl cleaner. It may turn the aluminum a little dark.
Buy a gasket kit and a big can of spray carb cleaner. Follow the instructions, clean and blow out the orfices. Soak all the new gaskets in WD40, and dont over tighten the screws. Adjust the floats like the instruction sheet sugests. Always mount an Edelbrock carb on a spacer to keep it cool, as little as 1/2 inch has worked well for me. I have also used as much as a two inch spacer, if the motor is a street motor, use a spacer with four holes rather than one big one.
" Always mount an Edelbrock carb on a spacer to keep it cool, as little as 1/2 inch has worked well for me. I have also used as much as a two inch spacer, if the motor is a street motor, use a spacer with four holes rather than one big one.[/QUOTE] I don't have a spacer on mine. How do you tell how big a spacer you need? Pretty stock 327 street driven. Thanks!
Yea I concur. I doubt that the 10% ethanol that we have been running for the last 20 years is eating up your edelbrock unless they are using a really inferior grade of aluminum. I have 40 year old holleys that are just fine as well as carters and rochestors. Most of them I have had to clean up before I could sue them.
I didn't see any damage to the metal but plenty of crud build up. Not from tank debris. More like a crusty build up that occurs around houshold plumbing on well water.
Just got a new 1406. Says right in the owners manual: "10% ethanol will not harm the carb, anything over 10% ethanol will start to cause problems. Edelbrock carbs should not be used with methanol added fuels. NOT FOR USE WITH METHANOL"
This might seem simplistic but I have two 1406's on the sbf in my 27 and they run great, but every once in a while they will start to idle a little rough, and what has fixed it for me each time is to get on the car hard and run it through the gears with my foot to the floor. The car immediately starts to run better. I don't know if it ****s the jets clean or what, but I have done this several times and it worked great each time. The first time I did it I was coming home from a show and the car almost wouldn't idle at a light, so out of being pissed as soon as I got on a side road I buried my foot in it and when I got to the shop it had returned to normal and stayed that way. I know it isn't just cleaning the plugs either because mine always burn a very light tan. Not saying that will fix your problem, but it might help someone else. Don
Just a little bit of dirt getting past the filter, or being generated inside from corrosion will mess with them. Road dirt getting in the air bleeds will effect fuel delivery. They are extremely simple and require cleanliness.
I've had the same problems, I think because of the ethonol fuel. I put a shut off valve in the fuel line just before the fuel inlet. When I get home after a drive, I shut off the fuel flow & run the engine till it dies. No problems since I've been doing this. But I have forgotten to turn on the fuel some times before restarting.
Had same problem after about 4-5 years. Truck gets driven very little, weekends only. Clean up cured the problem. I also added a fuel filter to ensure no crud got in from the tank. Runs like a dream again.
What Dons Hot Rods says usually works when I had my Shop in Tuscon I had a Customer that would bring his DeLorean in & tell me it was Slugish! so I would take it out on I-10 & run the Hell out of it about 30 miles Constantly getting in to it and Bring it back & park it when he came back I told him to take it for a ride & he asked what I did to it Because it ran so Good and I told him When I had My DeLorean I would only drive around in 1 & 2 Gear in town when I got on I-10 it was a Different Story! some cars you have to Get into them so they Run write just my 3.5 cents
Might check out this recent thread on similar discussion about Ebrock carb adjustments: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=7441894#post7441894
I don't have a spacer on mine. How do you tell how big a spacer you need? Pretty stock 327 street driven. Thanks![/QUOTE] Try a 1/2 inch thick gasket type spacer. If it works your done. If not, try another. Buy a gasket, and make a cardboard cover like it but with only holes for the studs. When you pull the carb off, always put the cover over the studs to keep from dropping **** down the holes. This works well if you have to change studs to longer ones.
I didn't find any evidence of carb erosion or corrosion, just crud build up. Not loose crud like you might get from a fuel tank but crud that sticks to the walls seat, etc. Fuel tanks had less than 4000 and 7000 miles.
Shouldn't be a problem with pump gas we use ethanol not methanol in our pump gas. But ti sounds like a good reason to dump the eldebrocks, holley carbs have made good alchy carbs for a long time. Actually when most fellas with any more than 15 minutes in the sallde under 'em run methanol on the track end of the day they dump a laod of race gas in the tank and clean their system out. makes it an eye burner for sure but it cleans the alcohol out of the system. methanol is actually some pretty nasty stuff.
It sounds like you maybe getting **** in your car's gas tank from the gas station. You might try a different station. I have run Edelbrock carbs on 4 different cars and never had that problem. Maybe I have been lucky.
I find the Edelbrock/ Weber carbs to be virtually bulletproof, BUT the newer fuels seem to eat up the older gasket/seal/accel. pump materials. Get a NEW rebuild kit that has ethanol resistant soft parts.
I started out with the original "Carter AFBs" in the 60s. Never had a bit of problems. Bad*** and simple on my 409/425hp+ in my B g***er. That's when we had real gasoline. Ethanol is the ruination of a fuel system. When it dries, you get a bunch of white powder sediment. Give them a cleaning, and you'll be good to go.
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