Hard starting 318. Drips fuel&wants high advance@idle

The float is bad or the needle and seat has dirt in it. be careful leaning this carb out too much as it will make it stumble The BBD is easy carb and very reliable when rebuilt correctly. The Rochester version is a bit of a pain in the tail as it is very sensitive to dirt.If that dist sat for 10 years I would rebuild it or at leas t spray the advance weights with PB blaster, or as stated the timing chain cam gear is history

Hey Guys!

I opened the carb, and cleaned everything up with carb spray, removed the internal components and sprayed those too, but have not rebuilt it yet since it idles and drives so nicely.

If the BBD is such a bad carb, what would be the best 2bbl to swap on in its place? Im looking for economy with this car, so I dont want to do a 4bbl swap... except as last resort.

I lubricated the distributer advance springs and plates when I was in there putting the Pertronix in, and it appears to be working nicely. I hadnt thought about the timing chain being wasted... that would be a bummer.

Thanks guys!

Did you adjust the air gap on the Pertronix unit?

Check for vacuum leaks

Hey Guys!

OK, a bit of an update here...

We have a Super Six with a BBD on it sitting right beside the car we are working on, so we decided to try swapping that carb on just to see what would happen.

With the other carb, the engine would fire up instantly. This allowed us to dial back the timing to a sensible level. The problem with this carb though is that the idle was terrible... up and down, up and down due to major vaccuum leaks around the throttle shaft.

The fact that this other carb cured the starting issue proved to us that it was in fact a carb issue, and (likely) not a timing issue, or whatever.

We cleaned out the original carb, noticing this time that the idle tubes(?) were completely clogged full of dirt. We cleaned those out and now the fuel doesnt drip from the boosters, but it is still a bit difficult to start.

Now, to get it to start reasonably quickly, I have to rapidly pump the throttle before and during cranking. To me, this seems to indicate that it could be a worn accelerator pump that is causing the starting issue.

As suggested, I'm going to rebuild the carb like I should have in the first place... at the very least, I'll stick a new accelerator pump in it and see if that helps.

Thanks for your help guys, and am appreciative of any more feedback and suggestions!

I finally rebuild the original BBD, and it is even harder to start than before... :-(

The accelerator pump appears to barely squirt anything out. The 2-bbl we pulled from that Super Six shoots two nice streams, but this rebuilt one barely spits anything out.

With the top off of the carb, if I manually plunge the accelerator pump, it shoots a couple of decent streams, but once the top is on, I barely get a dribble.

underneath the flat cover they're (2) miniature screws,one locks one of the brown plastic pieces onto the cross shaft that controls the height of the accel pump plunger & the other sets the height of the other brown plastic piece that manually raises the metering rod tree. But for now jerk the throttle open & if you are not getting a good stream look at the little S link & the amt of plunger travel. Between gas $$$ & my BBD issue I am very close to just parking everything for a period of time & either jogging or taking the bus to where I need to go.

The carb kit didn't come with instructions so I used my service manual to help do the rebuild, but this piece was left over... I don't recall removing anything like it, but it doesn't appear to fit anywhere.

Where does this go?

I will take some pics of my offending carb. I'm having a blast with my(1st) digital camera. EDIT your BBD doesnt have a flat plate covering the metering rod tree?

since you showed me yours I will show you mine & it's for sure different.

T7superbee here's mine. I don't have an ocean nearby to toss it into like I'd like to but it is going to dissapear.

Hey!

What are you replacing it with? A 4-bbl, or a better 2-bbl?

Ive given myself till Monday to get mine working right before I buy a 4-bbl intake and put on one of my Edelbrock or Holley carbs... 2-bbl economy would be nice, but if I cant drive it, then whats the point?

I have an edelbrock streetmaster & an 1850(600) holley that I just went thru which will be perfect for this. Right now it is sluggish as I squeeze into the throttle so I am going to slightly ch the plastic nub that manually raises the metering rod tree as you give it throttle & see if richening it up a bit helps. it's sluggish to where I have to give it alot of throttle sometimes to the point of it kicking down to 2nd & this extra throttle makes the gas gauge drop like a rock.With this carb I had to go to manifold vacuum which I don't like & I need to check my total timing & my plugs are bone white. This greasy grimy carb ran perfect until I decided that if I rebuilt it would run even better

Well, just a quick follow up here... I finally got everything working.

I combined the 2 BBDs that I have into 1 functioning one. I took the baseplate from my '70 BBD and put it onto the main body from the Super Six, and now my 318 starts perfectly, idles great, and drives fine as well!

Its crusty and ugly now, but at least it starts and drives!

Ahhh there you are. You've been playing hookey for a few days. since you got yours right I'd better stay with mine awhile longer & see if I can get it right too. I am so close.