I tried running my new TQ I bought from a member here as-is this morning. It started up fine and idled fine. However after a few minutes I saw some unburned fuel coming from my exhaust and realized the whole thing was leaking like a sieve from either side of the center.

I shut the engine off and unburned fuel vapor welled up in the choke tower like something from Tales from the Crypt. I dropped $35 on a rebuild kit, checked for cracks (didn't find any) and checked if the primary wells held gas (appeared to) and put it back together with new O-rings and all that good stuff. The bottoms of where the air horn mates with the O-rings was all caked with black junk; I made sure to have clean metal there before I put it back together.

Still leaks. The leak appears to be originating inside of the primaries as the tops of the throttle blades get soaked almost immediately. It also whistles. Not quite the tin whistle sound you get on some Edelbrocks, but it's definitely not the usual sucking noise. However, the primary throttle shaft didn't seem to have much of any play in it, definitely not enough to dump this much gas in it.

What could my problem be? I was hoping I'd be able to jump right in to the TQ experience but my car's literally undriveable with this carb.

Ok I just tried cranking it, not even starting it, and fuel pooled up on top of the throttle blades. Yes, I checked the float level, the floats aren't sunk/saturated and I'm running a regulator at 5 psi.

Sounds like your missing a couple "O"rings in the fuel wells.... Take the top off be sure to catch the two screws below the choke plate...Look for Square cut or Clover profiles "O"rings in the bottom of the two fuel wells... I'm guessing they are missing...

See item 54

http://www.mopar.nl/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/thq.gif

Nope, that's the first thing I thought. There were already ones down there that I pulled out and replaced. The old ones were a round profile, the new ones have a square profile with a groove on the face. I got a Walker kit from O'Reillys.

Hows the float level & float drop? Did you look for fuel leakage from the fuel well into the cavity in the base plate?

I set the float level at 1 1/8" (lower than spec), I don't know what the spec for drop was, it wasn't listed. It's not flooding out the top.

When I last pulled the carb fuel had gotten EVERYWHERE. There was no real way of telling where the leak started. I tried filling up the main body by itself and sloshed some gas into the wells and nothing came out. I still have it on the car right now as I'm disappointed I wasted half a day on this thing already..

Sometimes there will be a leak from the bottom of the plastic body, this can be found be putting fuel in the plastic body with it removed from the carb.. If there is fuel leaking out the bottom it comes from the fuel wells, similar to a Quadrajet the fuel wells fail... On the quadrajet there use to be a commonly sold fix... No on the shelf fix for Thermoquads but the fix is to use a dremel & grind the outside of the fuel wells then coat the seam area with JB weld & wait 24 hours before putting fuel in the bowl again to retest.....

I've taken the entire thing off to sit on a piece of cardboard to see if anything drips down overnight.

I may have spoken too soon on the flooding. The air horn gasket is saturated on either side adjacent to the bowls. Earlier, I checked the floats and they both seemed buoyant and floated at the same level - I had my regulator at the same setting I used on my AVS, which has brass floats.

If testing the wells later on doesn't yield anything, is it possible the floats are getting overwhelmed by the fuel pressure, even if it's only 4.5-5.5 psi? Do these things start to leak internally like the way I'm seeing when they flood?

Yeah, the Thermoquad will push fuel out below the lid before it comes out the bowl vent... If your plastic body was the issue You'd be seeing leakage pretty quickly....

Maybe my gauge is janky, then. I use a big shop-type vacuum/pressure combo gauge I have to hook up every time I want to use it since I've heard those little teeny underhood ones aren't so accurate, maybe I'm experiencing some irony there...

My head still hurts from the stank this thing put off the last time I ran it - if nothing appears to leak, tomorrow I'll reinstall it and try cranking down my regulator and see what happens. I don't think I got sold a bum part, hopefully misread fuel pressure ends up being my problem.

The thing is I can make suggestions but I can't see the thing.. There may be something wrong that I would recognize but we've hit the typical stuff.. I hear ya about the stink, raw fuel gives me headaches too... Hopefully lowering the fuel pressure helps..

JBQuick worked fine on my jet wells.

Float height is measured from the inverted top from the gasket.

Whistle is the sign of a lean condition. Check the slop on the passenger side of the primary shaft.

OK, so it looks like I have a loose throttle shaft. I cranked down my fuel pressure and it was running without flooding, but I was still seeing some fuel pop out of the primary venturies. I can wiggle the throttle shaft a bit and cause a big enough vacuum leak to where the boosters start leaking gas.

Edit: OK, maybe not. I've fiddled with the idle and idle mixture settings and now it'll idle without whistling, but it'll whistle in the transition off idle. It's not flooding any more and the boosters won't leak on me any more. As I open the throttle it goes whoooooooWEEEEEEEEEoooo then quiets down.

Edit edit: yes, I seem to have a throttle shaft leak. Depending on how I wiggle it around it will whistle a bit or change the idle. Yay.