In the process of rebuilding Qjet... need some help
 

I just recieved a used Quadrajet carb that I bought through eBay. It appears to be a computer controlled version, although I can already tell there are several peices missing. Anyway, this carb has screws with star-shaped heads. I bought a star-head screwdriver set and it has been working pretty well so far, but the screw that holds the secondary metering rods has been stripped really bad, and none of my screwdriver sockets fit. I doused it in PB blaster and will try to loosen it again tomorrow, but if I can't get it out that way, how else can I get one of these stubborn screws out?

One of the small sets of visegrips usually works for me. I personally hate those screws because it's some oddball size (like T7). I always replace them with a standard machine screw.

Exactly what Hawk said.

Thanks guys. I had just thought of that as I was reading what you posted, so I am going to try that as soon as I get a chance. Where can I get standard machine screws from that will fit the Quadrajet?

Anywhere?


Napa.

pieces missing ? you dont know if its CC or not ?

wow....

i refrain from comment

good luck

heh

Actually, I found a few missing peices that I was talking about in the box it was shipped in. Must have fallen off during the shipping process... stupid USPS.

when you remove the screw (with whatever tool and or luck), bring it in to parts store, and match up thread diameter and pitch and length, and get a phillips or whatever you like.

Remember, get a can of compressed air to blow out the passages.

I've confirmed that it is definately a CC Qjet. However, I'm still having trouble with some stuff. Stupid Haynes manual.

Step 7D.29 says to unscrew and remove the two main metering jets. In the picture it has arrows pointing to two screw-like objects on either side of where the seat is. However, on my carb there is no place to unscrew anything... just two long skinny rods pointing up out of the base of the carb. What is the deal here?

Also, what are the "best" secondary rods for a daily-driven street car? I pulled the secondary rods on the carb I am rebuilding and it has "DR" stamped onto the side of them.

keep the DR's, they're good stuff. Your hangar should be something close to A in the alphabet. A Q hanger for example would pull your rods out very late.

Once you pull out your long skinny metering rods, and you power piston (what they are attached to), then what those rods were sticking in, in the base of the carb, should be your jets.
Correct me if i'm wrong CC q-jet gurus.

My hanger is marked with an "M" on the top.

I'd use an F, or B if you can find one easily. Edelbrock makes a B one I think, ~$7.

Sonix, I've attached a couple of pictures to give a better idea of what I am talking about as far as the main jets go. The picture in the Haynes manual I am using does not look anything like what these pictures look like.

whoa, what the hell is that??


k, you're looking in the right area where the main jets should be, but those are tubes....

I've only rebuild a cc-qjet once, and it was 2 years ago, and I was unsuccessful. I don't remember if the cc-qjet used tubes like that, instead of the normal jets, but I don't think so.
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wait a sec, where's your TPS? and MCS?

I've already removed them.

Here's are a few various pictures of things I have removed.

Picture 1 is the MCS I removed next to the Haynes manual MCS removal step

Picture 2 is the TPS

Picture 3 is the float and seat

Give me some feedback.

EDIT: Step 7D.30b of the manual also says "Remove the accelerator pump discharge screw (plug) and remove the check ball. Either use a magnet or turn the carburetor over, catching the ball as it falls out."

I removed the "discharge screw" from the carb, but I have turned it over and even shaken the carb a bit but I have yet to find a check ball anywhere in or on the carb. Is that a bad thing?

I have noticed that the carb appears to have been rebuilt at some point in its life already because the idle-mixture screws have already been tampered with. The carb itself is very dirty, though... so it must have been a while ago.

atta boy. :lmao:


If you don't have a check ball for the accelerator pump, then you don't have one. It would be in the tiny well below the screw, which I can see you've removed. Someone must have left it out before I guess. There should be a new one in your rebuild kit.

Someone else can tell you the secret about those "main jets". They boggle me.

Thanks for all the help man. It's greatly appreciated. Now I'm off to work. Hopefully Damon or some other Qjet gurus will chip in some advice on the main jets. They are confusing me, too.

By the way, I'm in no rush to get this back together since the T/A is still quite driveable. The main reason I am rebuilding this one is so I can transfer it to the T/A once it's finished, mostly due to gas milage and drivability reasons (although I have seen quite a few articles on how tuning a carburetor correctly can net considerable HP gains--secondary motive :) )I want to do it right before making the switch, though. Hence the reason for so many questions.

Those "tubes" are the main jets in a CC q-jet.

Why aren't you using the instructions from the rebuild kit?

There aren't any directions on the sheet. It's basically just a piece of paper that says remove carburetor, dissassemble and re-install. I'm a complete newbie to rebuilding carbs, and this is actually the first carburetor I've ever attempted to rebuild. I need something more than vague directions like that. :idiot:

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up. I take it the main jets are not removable or adjustable, correct?

Is the accelerator pump fuel well baffle not removable on CC Qjets? The Haynes manual says to remove it but, try as I may, the stupid thing will not budge.

Most carb kit instructions are an exploded numbered picture, with the numbers on the side indicating the disassembly order. Special instructions are contained in footnotes and figures (typically on the back side of the sheet). That's all you really need.

The main jets are removable and replaceable. See the flats at the bottom?

I've never removed the pump baffle. No idea why it would say to do so.

Without the check ball, your accelerator pump will not work.

Hmm, sorry... I'd still have to say the Haynes manual is by far more helpful even though its not strictly CC Qjet oriented. I guess I am just not as mechinally-savvy as some. I'd rather have actual pictures of what I am supposed to remove instead of trying figure out how something comes apart by looking at an exploded numbered diagram.

Anywho, I've looked at the bottom of the carb... looks more like they are welded in there or something. Doesn't look like they are gonna budge without using some major force (and consequently breaking them in the process). Is it absolutely necessary to remove them, or can I just throw the whole base of the carb into some carb cleaner dip? If I need to remove them, how should I go about doing that?

I don't know about the pump baffle either, but I wasn't too worried about it. Now I am definately not worried about it.

I also looked in my carb rebuild kit... Sonix was correct, there was a new check ball included with it.

Thanks for all the help. I will probably take another whack at it tomorrow and have more questions. Thanks again!

The "welds" on the bottom side of the bowl/body directly under the main jets are lead plugs. When manufacturing the carb, after drilling the passages, the bottom of the main fuel circuit "wells" are open, so they are plugged by jamming lead into them. On the other side, looking from the fuel bowl with the jets removed, you'll see open passages.

The main jets should unscrew, but if they're not budging, it would be better to leave them in place and blow them out thoroughly from each direction after soaking in carb cleaner than it would be to risk damaging them.

And refer to this for your assembly sheet:

http://72.19.213.157/files/E4MEexplode.jpg

And these instructions:

E4ME Assembly

Here's a good link:

http://members.dandy.net/~k0xp/Oldsm...dingEQjets.htm

And another:

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/57178/

Ok, I only skimmed through this thread before responding, but I keep seeing "remove the main jets" and "CC QJet". Last time I checked, the main jets on a CC Qjet were non-removable (unlike the standard, non-CC QJet). Have I been mistaken all these years?

I'm racking my brain trying to remember if I removed them when I rebuilt my CC q-jet last year. I'm pretty sure I did. I did receive messages from helpful TGO members about different main jets between LG4 and L69, and 350 CC carbs. And, Vader's 2nd link has this in the disassembly order:
f. primary rods with springs (CAUTION: BE CAREFUL NOT TO BEND THESE RODS OR DISTORT THE SPRINGS!!);
g. primary jets and fuel inlet valve seat.

They just typically don't need to be replaced for tuning purposes.

99 Hawk you've been mistaken. All CCC Qjet main jets come out. Wow there is a lot of misinformation about these carbs.

Learn something new everyday, I suppose! I haven't done much more than standard rebuilds on CCC QJets in the last 5 years, but I'm pretty sure I've never replaced or removed the main jets. Fascinating. Now I have the urge to go home and inspect one of my junk carbs just to mess with them. :thanks:

Thought I'd post a small update on my progress... I'm kinda using thread as my inspiration to get this done. Been working and doing other stuff too much...

Anyway, I cleaned up all of the major parts with the chemical dip, but it still had lots of brown residue and crud all over it (even after blowing compressed air through it). So I went to AZ and bought some brake cleaner and gave it a good dousing of that. I figured since it leaves no residue it would be the best option to use. I misted it over the carb first and then put on the little attachment and blasted all the left over crap off of where the jets are and other random spots. It looks a ton better than when I first recieved it.

The throttle and upper body parts have not been cleaned as well yet. I'm going to go get another bottle of brake cleaner and finish them later. Then I'm going to start trying to figure out how to rebuild this thing. :confused:

P.S. - Is it possible to paint a carb without any adverse functional side effects?

are those tubes parked in the wells there on the left, the secondary fuel pickups, or the high speed bleeds?? (Not supposed to be there on a cc-qjet right..?)

Looking good. I'd use some of that eastwood brand carb paint, a silver and bronze color would really accentuate it nicely. Bring out it's eyes ;)
My local speed shop had eastwood spray paint on the shelf FWIW.

I honestly don't know what those are. I noticed them too and I also have two more of those skinny tubes that fell out of the carb--don't know where they go or what they do.

But, back on paint... so you're saying that just giving a carb broken down like this is perfectly ok to paint? No adverse side affect function-wise?

wow! it looks ALOT better in that last pic than the ones at the top of the post. brakeclean rules doesnt it?

keep pushing on with the rebuild... im going to use this thread as a reference when i begin to rebuild my 84's CC carb in the next few weeks

You should have four "skinny tubes" (air bleeds and secondary pickups) press fit into the air horn assembly. They sometimes fall out but can be tapped back in. If you don't know where they go let me know and when I get home tonight I can check.

yea, I couldn't find a picture...
if you're not sure where they go in the air horn, and since you have a digital camera, snap a pic of the underside of the air horn, and someone, myself or naf, could mspaint a few circles on there.

http://72.19.213.157/files/M4MESmall.jpg

That's not the original yellow zinc dichromate, but paint on the main body and bowl cover. So long as you don't paint in any critical clearance areas, it will be fine.

What are the critical areas where I should not paint? I was going to give the body of the carb a bit of gold paint to give a nice luster like I saw in that carcraft article (however, I realize paint and zinc coating are two completely different animals).

Anywho, here is a picture of the underside of the airhorn. Edit away.

what the crap? 0 tubes hanging down? ok, i'm gonna let naf do this one, 'cuz I thought you'd have 4 tubes total, perhaps the cc-qjet has only 2?

ok, here is what it is on mine.

green = high speed air bleeds. Your air bleeds for your primary system. Never seen THESE fall out....?

red = secondary emulsion tubes. kinda the accelerator pump for the secondaries. People drill teeny tiny holes in the sides of these, in the bottom 3/8" in order to help fuel flow to the secondaries. ***Where are these for you???***

Sitting right next to my primary rods. Couldn't figure out where they went so I just set them someplace where I would remember.

So are you saying to just tap the tubes into the red holes with a hammer or something? I don't understand how they connect where you circled on the main body, though. Maybe a little more explination (sorry, still a newbie gearhead to an extent)?

Thanks again for the help.

yes, just drive them into the air horn.
they will simply hang down into the float bowl, and hang into fuel, and suck fuel up into the air horn.

Well, they don't suck fuel up into the airhorn. They bubble air into the fuel being sucked up into the airhorn so it is more easily vaporized when it gets into the intake manifold.

..and they don't "suck" fuel, the higher pressure outside the carb pushes fuel/air into an area of lower pressure..:)
(I'm not sure that's technically correct either, but my background is civil, Er, I mean simple.)

Nate 86: Sorry I didn't get back to you last night. Wife came back from being out of town, went to dinner....

Seems Sonix helped you out fine. I've opened several of these carbs and almost always find one of more of these "skinny tubes" loose inside. Sometimes reinstalling them is all that's really needed to correct the carbs tune (and a good cleaning).

usually it's the fatter tubes that fall out for me...

oooh! oh no, there's a tiny black hole in the carb, and it SUCKS the fuel!!!!
yea, the skinny tubes are high speed air bleeds, aka air bleeds for the primaries. Those just let air in IIRC. The secondary emulsion tubes, the fatter ones, I thought *those* SUCK fuel up, and put it through the tubes that hang into the secondary venturis?

Either way, hammer them in... epoxy if you want.

Ok, finally started rebuilding after all the parts were cleaned and dried. So far I've epoxied the six cast plugs that are notorious for leaking fuel with JB weld and reattached the throttle body to the main body.

I've encountered a problem, however. I am trying to reinstall the seat, but the Haynes manual says that a gasket should be installed with it. I've looked through all the tiny pieces in the rebuild kit and I can't seem to find a gasket that will fit under the seat. What am I missing here?

Yes, there should be a small hard gasket that fits over the threads for the seat. I've got one here that looks new. It's metal (almost like a thin washer) with a thin black vinyl or rubber coating. If you can't find yours I can mail this one to you Monday if you PM me your address.

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread.

Is this the gasket you are referring to? It is the only one that fits thru the seat that I have found in my rebuild kit. Everything else is too small to work.

Not it. Want me to mail you mine, PM me your address. Can't promise 100% I can still find it. I taped it to an index card and it may be lost in the pile of stuff on my desk at home.

my "gasket" that goes below the seat (as in needle & seat ->seat), was simply a brass disc. If you don't use one, it's probably still going to seal anyway, you're screwing brass into brass

As much as I want to believe you and start rebuilding this thing again, I'd first have to be absolutely sure that it wasn't going to cause any problems. One of my biggest pet peeves about this hobby is that if you do something that you're not absolutely sure of and it messes up, you spend double the amount of time trying to fix it again when you could have done it right the first time. I don't have the patience for that. :gocrazy:

I thought it's still apart? Or is it in service now?
:huh: