I had problems when I first put a new Edelbrock manifold and carb on last year - it turned out that the floats in the carb had never been adjusted. It ran fine for a while, then sat for about six months while I restored the interior. It started right up two months ago, but then sat again while I fixed some major electrical problems.

I thought I was finally ready to go today, but it's flooding (then stalling) on me. I pulled it apart and checked the floats, they're fine. It looked like the small triangular brass piece that the float pushes up and down in the inlet may have been binding and keeping the float from rising. I lightly sanded it, put it back in, and it seemed to move freely. But when I put the carb back together, same problem - gas pouring out of the top of the accelerator pump.
I checked the fuel pressure when I first had the problem and it was right around 5psi.

Suggestions...?

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Ed
'68 El Camino (Current Project)
'66 Caddy Conv (Cruiser)
'87 Vette Conv (Daily Driver)

[This message has been edited by 68Elkie (edited 11-20-2002).]

I think the brass piece your refering to is your needle and the inlet is the seat. This must be a very precise fit and if you "lightly sanded" too much you may have to replace the needle/seat unit. I used to have an Edelbrock carb and I just went out to the shop and I still have the strip kit so I took a look. The triangular brass needle should also have a rubber tip on it that seals the inlet. Is the rubber still there.

Thanks for checking, Rick. Yep, that's the piece. It's got a little rubber tip on it. I held the top piece of the carb (the horn?) in the air and wasn't able to consistently move the float up and down. The needle would bind and not go up into the seat.
I didn't sand too much, just attempted to remove any burrs that may have been there by rubbing each side of it on some 400 grit.

Could it be the needle was just coming down too low, too far out of the seat? Would bending the tab on the float that moves this needle help? I carefully adjusted the float drop according to the carb specs, but didn't pay any attention to how it was moving the needle.
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Ed

Correct. Although I'm not sure about your particular carb, some carbs do have a float drop adjustment that limits the travel of the float and keeps the needle from pushing too far up off the seat.

Problem solved, and as I suspected, the needle was dropping too low, causing it to bind in the seat when the float tried to push it back in.

Problem caused by contradictory info in the carb manual. There are pictures showing how to adjust the floats, and the picture showing the drop says it should be at 1 1/4", which is where I set it. The text however, says 15/16 - 1". Who reads the text when there're pictures ? I reset the floats to 1" and all seems to be fine.
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Ed