Yup,your holley likely has dried out gaskets and needs a freshen up rbld which is par for the course esp with older gen holley's.
Thats why i like the old q-jets so much,they can go 25+ yrs (insted of 3-5yrs like a holley) in same situation esp on a classic car that's only driven once in a while in summer season,they get better fuel mileage,and they can perf just as well in most reasonable street or street/strip applications when setup correctly, but not on an 8 second ground pounder,thats better left to the hiperf holley's.
I put a new serevice rep 7029207 q-jet on my 396 in 1980 and removed it still working well in 2006 (26yrs later with never having a rebuild) to re-install the original #'s matching q-jet i finally had restored/re-dyed by Sean Murphy which looked better then new and it ran great on my mild 396/now 402 with approx 370hp/430 lbs trq.
The only maint the carb saw in in thos 26yrs was 2 new stock gm GF432 lrg inline fuel filters,i always ran fuel stabilizer in the off season to keepthe fuel from going bad or gumming up the fuel system esp the carb,and i always ran a clean air filter in the stock type gm open element air cleaner gm used on the 396/350 & 375hp motors.
BTW,Sean is a sponser of this site and gives a discount to tem memebers so maybe you could send your carb to Sean.
See the SEAN MURPHY INDUCTION (SMI) website for details,like is to the left of the page here in team chevelle.
Eric is also very good too.
Scott
