442 1985 442 Carburetor Stock Restoration-Refurbish

[69hurstolds]

Finally, the day arrived when my carburetor returned back to me in better condition than when it was sent. I was expecting to like it, but I wasn't expecting the level of detail I got. Granted, the guy is a retired GM engineer and knows carburetors inside and out, but he tends to shy away from the CCC style, but he is knowledgeable about them.

His name is Harold Demes, from Vail, AZ. His email addy is [email protected] if you wish to inquire about his services. I can tell you from experience, it took about a month and a half from when I sent mine out until I got it back.

Cost to send it to him via FedEx was around $35.
I stripped the carb down to parade rest. I only included things that were crucial to the replating/refinishing and cleaning procedures he was going to use. No electronics made it to him, or primary guts or secondary rods.

His price to clean/refinish/replate the stuff I sent him was $100, and he charged $50 to rebush the primaries. I had a standing order to do the secondaries if he deemed necessary, but he didn't believe it needed it. Not many do, and this one was no exception. A flat $20 return trip. Total cost with turnaround was $205. Your price may vary, that's up to him. So if you're interested, contact him. MANY many people with Quadrajets are pleased with his services. And now I am too. I'm not sure what he'd charge to do a complete top to bottom restoration, but again, he likes doing the older, non-CCC carbs the best.

I have the skills, tools and parts to do mine myself, so why not? If I had all the cool plating stuff, I'd do that myself too, but I don't.

As received.

Looks pretty good overall.

Yup. This is the carb I sent!

If you look close at the bodies of both carbs, they're the same color of muddled green with a hint of gold. I'm pleased with the way it turned out. It'd be a tad nicer had it came out with a bit more gold hues in it, but overall it's within the shade tolerances of NOS carbs. So I'm good with it. The carb in the background is my Frankencarb made up of NOS VIN Y float bowl, modified Chevy air horn, and used VIN 9 baseplate. Carb was built to VIN 9 specs. You can see it has a home-made on-the-car test jumper for the TPS so the voltmeter can easily be hooked up to it when adjusting it on the car.

Probably start putting this bad boy back together tomorrow. Stand by for updates as I get to them...

 

[87 Monte Carlo SS]

Wow did he ever do a nice job. Looking forward to seeing how you put this back together and your adjustments.

 

[69hurstolds]

I started on this project today. It's a PITA to work a little, think about what needs to be explained, and then take photos of the stuff, but in the end, it might just be worth it to someone. Bench setting these E-jets isn't that hard, especially if you have the parts and specialty tools to do it. But even so, you can probably do work arounds. I'll try my best to try and explain some of the crap I'm doing. So far I'm very pleased with the refinishing that was performed on the carb parts. Granted, I'm a bit of a stickler for stock as possible for this project, but for the price point, I could spend a lot more for not much more on a ROI. I'm still thinking this will be a million percent better looking than the original look when it's finally reassembled.

First and foremost, EVERYTHING I got back from Harold went for a dip in the pool (acetone washout). And/or got a spritz of carb cleaner. Checked all passages and they were all clean. Took a paper clip and slid through each and every restrictor hole to make sure nothing was clogged. Didn't expect it, but you never know. I'm also glad I ran taps through EVERYTHING that I possibly could before going to the platers. And all the screws got a die run to ensure the threads were all straight and any crud got taken out. Makes putting the stuff back together a breeze.

So- on with the show.

There's no rhyme or reason on where to start reassembly with a carburetor that's been basically returned to its original state of virtually no parts installed. I even removed all the vacuum tubes from the throttle plate and the rest of the carb. All new tubes purchased through either Quadrajetpower.com or Quadrajetparts.com. I got whatever else I could ACDelco/GM parts. Some pieces will be cleaned and re-used, but not many. The power carb kit, vacuum pulloffs, choke guts, float kit, and TPS and M/C solenoid are all GM. ACDelco fuel filter with the check valve in it. I know some people hate that thing, but it came that way from the factory so there's that.

We'll start with the throttle plate.

What you see is the throttle plate, the shafts, and the throttle blades. The blades MUST go in a certain way. You can't just toss them in any old way you want. They are cut with a slight bevel so when the throttle is closed, the blades sit at a very slight angle. If it didn't, they'd be more difficult to open. They're technically butterfly valves, which means they can throttle from full shut to a slightly open position, but after a certain point, the throttling affect is reduced significantly. The replating made them all corrosion resistant, but the factory came with the Kermit the Frog green teflon coating. Unfortunately there's no current refinisher out there that economically can or will replace the teflon coating. It's all good. They don't have to have it, but you can't have everything in life. Also, note the butterfly valve plates. The fronts have the Rochester Products logo and part number facing up and in the rear, and the rears have two "indentation" marks that go in facing up, and toward the front. The RP and p/n are in the rear facing down on the big ones (they also have raised bumps in the same place on the other side of the "indentations" in the top side). So they go in exactly as you see them here. I can't speak for all Q-jets, but all the Q-jets I own have it set up this way.

And, in case you forget how they go, there are notches on the sides of each of the blades. This shows the bevel cut orientation. Basically, the top of the cut leans toward the front. Mine still had the original screw head markings on the blades, so it was easy to figure out which way was up.

Since the original screws were staked and had to be ground down to remove them, they needed to be discarded. Shame too because it had a little wider head and were torx screws. But I couldn't find any, so again, one of the Quadrajet parts places came through. Because I'm not going to "stake" the threads, it is highly advisable to use red loctite on the threads. DON'T just take 8 screws, dab some loctite on them and start to screw them in. You need to make sure the blades are centered in the holes correctly and once that loctite sets, you're probably going to be fooked trying to fix something stupid. You can do whatever you want, but this is how I did it- I screwed all the throttle blade screws in place first. Jockey the blades around a little as you tighten them down. What you want here is for the blades to seat as well as possible and hold it up to a light source. You probably won't get it to zero light, but you want to minimize as much light as possible. Especially the secondaries. The primaries usually are off seat anyway. If light can pass, so can air. And the carb fuel circuit will have to make up for that little bit of air. So yeah, it may not be perfectly sealed, but minimize the light in this department.

Now, with all the 8 screws tightened down where you want them, remove ONE screw. Dab the tip with the loctite and screw it back in. Tighten it down. Move to the next screw. Remove it, tighten it down. Try not to bump the blades out of position when doing this. Take your time. No rush here. It goes pretty quick. After all 8 are dabbed with loctite and reinstalled, it'll look like the pic below. Set it aside for a while and let the loctite set up. Hopefully it won't be YOU having to remove those blades ever again. You could stake them if you like, but then you run the risk of bending the shaft unless you have something rigged up to do it right. It's up to you. The reason you want to stake or loctite the screws holding on the butterflies and the choke plate and the secondary air flaps is that you do NOT want any of those screws to work loose and end up in the engine. They will get past the valves and reside in the cylinders. They may blow out, or they may not. They might do a lot of damage because they're hardened screws. Or should be. Not a good day if you suck in a loose screw.

After a break, the loctite should be set up and the screws are now married to the shafts. If I do this right, it'll last me until I'm dead anyway. But it's on to getting the shafts connected. The quadrajet secondaries connect via a link lever arrangement from the primary shaft to the secondary lever. It's kind of a neat arrangement in the fact that the secondaries could actually be locked out when conditions warrant, but the primaries won't be affected. You could floor it, and the secondaries won't move, but the operating link lever will move the spring loaded lever back. There's a "bobby pin" looking spring plus a secondary spring that actually will allow the secondaries to open like a solid shaft, but if they're locked out, the lever moves against spring pressure but nothing happens to the secondary butterflies. They stay shut. That way you can open the primaries all the way and have like a 300 cfm or whatever the primaries can pull. Because that will be all you got. But you need to get all that junk reinstalled, so here's how you would do it. First, study the link lever below. The front part just "L" hooks into the front hole of the primary lever. Easy. But the secondary side of the lever snakes through the secondary operating lever. This is where it gets a bit weird. Normally, smarter people than I would put this lever and spring arrangement on before putting the butterflies into the secondary side. But what if you didn't take the butterflies out? You can STILL wrangle this lever into place on the shaft. Put it into the position I'm showing below and you can wiggle it onto the shaft without much fanfare. Put the inner spring into place first with the open side of the hook on the spring facing forward. Forgetting to do this will make you do it again.

Then once you get it wiggled into place, you can install the outer spring. To do this, you will need to hold the secondary shaft stable, or if the butterflies are in you can just hold the butterflies shut. Then push the back of the lever down like you were going to open the secondaries. This lines up the slot on the end of the shaft and the half-moon shape on the lever to allow you to snap the outer spring into place. A small flat blade screwdriver or needle nose pliers works well in this maneuver.

And then you're almost done. Now all you have to do is wind up the springs a little and put them in place. I took my little flat blade screwdriver and placed the inner spring straight tang in the little slot in the throttle body. Then I turned it almost a full turn clockwise and brought the hook end of it up and placed it around the back of the secondary operating lever. I then took the straight end of the outer spring and turned it clockwise to bring it underneath the lever tang to hold it in place, about 1/2 turn.

 

[69hurstolds]

Now the super easy part of shaft springs. Moving on to the primary side, on the passenger side, there's the fast idle screw and step lever assembly needing to be assembled to the shaft. It also has a spring, but it's a small one.

Easy peasy. Make it look like this and you're golden.

Now you can set the throttle body aside for a minute. You're pretty much done here at the moment. At this point, here's what you're working with.

Now lets start in on the float bowl, aka the main carb body. First, we might as well get a "handle" for the carb. That's what I use the filter nut for mostly. 🙂 Since Oldsmobiles use the long nose nut, I take advantage of that. So here we go. First, we have the GF471 ACDelco filter, the filter nut with the nylon gasket on the end of the threads from the power carb rebuild kit, and the filter spring. Spring goes in first, metal end of the filter goes against spring, then the nut screws it all together. If you have a filter nut wrench, then use it. Just grunt it down. I don't know of any torque spec for the nut (oops, there actually is a torque spec found in the "Fuel System" in the CSM- it's 18 lbs/ft). I just snug it pretty tight and have never had any issues. Don't lean on it, but super-snug works. The curb idle screw/spring just screws into place. Just get it in there and put a bit of spring pressure on it. You'll do curb idle adjustments on the car. I'm just putting in a pic because someone MIGHT forget to do this. Now is as good a time as any.

Let's marry the float bowl to the throttle plate. Get this thing at least looking somewhat like a carburetor. There are 5 screws total that hold the throttle plate to the main body. 3 of the shortest fillister head screws go in from the bottom of the throttle body, and there's 2 really long ones that go through the back of the carb air horn all the way down to thread into the back of the throttle plate. Obviously we're only going to look at the 3 short screws, because we're waiting to put on the air horn later.

We're going to use the 3 screws on the right for now to hold the throttle plate onto the float bowl/main body.

Normally, you would put the throttle body to float bowl gasket on the bottom of the float bowl as it has locater tabs to help keep things aligned. I'm only placing it here for picture purposes. Check to make sure there's no major overhangs inside the bores. Use a sharp knife to do a bit of trimming if needed. This is a gasket from the ACDelco kit, and it's dead nuts. No issues to worry about. With some of the kits made overseas, you just never know. Always check. Did you know that there's basically two reasons for the gasket being thicker on the bottom of the float bowl? First, you get a tad better heat transfer protection from the thicker gasket. But also, it spaces out the secondary jet channels and plugs from hitting the throttle body. A thinner gasket would let them contact in that little middle bowl area. Not sure if that's a good thing.

As you can see here, there's the three arrows pointing to the three screw location. Torx drive on the CCC carbs.

Oops. Forgot about the metering screws. These are new, aftermarket ones. The originals were steel. But since they're going to be exposed, I think they probably can get by with being brass. Installed, I set them to 3.5 turns out from lightly seated as a starting point.

Might as well get this one out of the way, too. It's the divider plate in the secondaries. It only goes in one way, and this means the scalloped openings need to be facing up when installed. Just slides down into slots in the float bowl. You can install this pretty much any time prior to installing the air horn. But I went ahead and did it now because it was there.

Enough for now. I'll pick up on this tomorrow.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Excellent write up so far Mike, very informative and useful for the QuadraJet guys. Looking forward to the rest of it, this should be sticky material GP403.

 

[69hurstolds]

I probably should have started all of this with the following 2 pictures. It's an exploded diagram of a E4MC/E4ME carburetor with a list of pieces/parts and the nomenclature. This is out of the CSM. I'll try to reference the diagram number for parts as I go so you can get familiar with the diagram. I've seen my share of the innards of these carbs so I'm somewhat familiar, but I think it will help if you're not that familiar with the parts of one. If you don't do this sort of thing very much, it's easy to get confused as to what goes where when you see a bag of parts.

Now's the time it's going to take balls to continue. Or just one. 🙂 You want to ensure the check ball for the accelerator pump works as well as it can. Check valves are never designed for 100% prevention of backflow, but you still want the best seating possible. You can take the old check ball and drop it in, then take a drift punch and give it a love tap to seat it well. This method rounds out the seat so the new check ball will seat as well as it possibly can. Don't go crazy, just a small hammer and a good rap should do it. Then remove the used ball and discard. Then you can put the new check ball in place, replace the check ball retainer screw and that part is done.

Used ball. #52

You can see the top of the ball down in its seat area.

TAP. And you're done.

Well, crap. That didn't go as well as I hoped. It seems the ball is stuck in the seat. It won't just fall out. I didn't have my little magnet rod handy, so what I did was take the old accelerator pump rod and quickly push it down the accelerator well and "POP"! It came loose. I dumped it out and put the new ball in, then put the retainer screw back into place. All done here.

New ball #52 and retainer screw #53.

 

[69hurstolds]

Next, we'll go right next door to the check ball and install the pump well baffle, #54. It's a slight tapered pizza slice wedge shape with a bite out of the bottom. Don't worry, it only goes in one way. Doesn't matter which way faces out, just make sure it's there and its seated. Most people don't take this out, but it just pulls right out with needle nose pliers. Push it down and make sure it doesn't stick up past the surface of the float bowl and you're done. I know the pics make the pieces look dirty but they're all cleaned. They don't look that cruddy IRL.

Test fit before installing the check ball. This is where it goes.

Ok, that's out of the way, on to the float. Wait...what? We're nowhere near getting to that part. Well, sort of. You're going to need to set the float to specs, so with the bowl empty of all other crap, now is a good time to do that. But first we'll need to install the needle and seat. Luckily, they come in the power carb rebuild kit. GM p/n 17076044. Always check YOUR p/n against your carb number. Different kits for different carbs. It seems the aftermarket groups them more than the OEM guys. I guess they call it a "power" carb rebuild kit because it includes pretty much everything needed to do a basic rebuild on your carb as far as gaskets and seals and junk.

Needle and seat with gasket and hanger. #55 A through D on the diagram. The seat needs a WIDE flat blade screwdriver. I modified one of my wife's garden digging tools slightly to do just that. 🙂 Shhh! She still hasn't noticed.

And of course you'll need a float. #56. They come in a float kit or the float alone under different part numbers obviously. I got the float kit which includes a hinge pin #57 and a bunch of extra plastic crap. The extra crap is two inserts, an aneroid cavity, #61, and the float bowl insert, #60. These I believe are also included in the M/C solenoid kit but I'd have to check again.

THIS IS IMPORTANT! While it's tempting, DO NOT hook the needle hanger into either hole in the float hanger. The needle needs to articulate while moving up and down and could hang up in the seat if you put the hanger in one of the holes. Resist the urge to do this. It needs to slip around and let the seat be the guide. Also, note the position of the hinge pin. It should only go in like as shown. Otherwise you'll get there as it won't fit in correctly and the bowl insert won't go in. What you see is the GM recommended positioning of the pin and needle hanger. Got it? There's also a picture in the CSM depicting this very thing.

This is what it should look like when the float is installed correctly. Note the aneroid cavity insert down on the left. It fits only one way, so make sure you put it in correctly. It has to sit flush with the top of the float bowl. Now it's time to adjust the float. After we get it where we want it, we'll remove the float and needle assembly and put it aside in a safe place where it won't get bent and when the time comes, you can just drop in the float with all the other junk and it'll be pre-adjusted.

But what do we adjust the float to? Ahh, not to worry, GM has that information right there in a chart inside the CSM. A tad hard to read, but the VIN 9 carb is the 2nd line in the chart. Looks to be 14/32 (7/16"). It seems everything is in thirty-seconds with these carburetors, except for the plus or minus on the float settings (+/- 1/16") WTF? Meaning a range of 3/8" to 1/2" from the top of the float bowl is good on the float setting. Know your math, kids. For contrast, a Y engine is set to 5/16" to 3/8" from the top of the float bowl. This means the Y engine float is set higher than the VIN 9. Confused yet?

 

[69hurstolds]

Now that we have the float setting parameter in hand, we can go ahead and use the GM float setting tools to do the job. You can get by without using the tool, but the advantage of the tool is the fact that it holds the needle in place in the shut position, with a set amount of pressure on the needle. I'm guessing the weight is to simulate the pressure the needle would see when it is shut. So it won't vary during the setting procedure. Also, it maintains the hinge pin in place as trying to use your thumb may try to raise the hinge pin out of its seat which will affect the float setting itself. You can make it work without the tools, but it's more trial/error. Plus, the tool set comes with a cool float arm "bender" that makes it easy to set the float bend with proper pressure on each side without warping it. There's a line on the foot of the ACDelco floats that signify where you need to put the measuring tool. If not, you can go about 3/16" in from the tip. That is your measuring point for the floats. The measuring tool in the kit is an adjustable T style steel ruler, and it does a perfect job of setting the depth goal. Easiest way to do it is set your depth on the T, then adjust your float to meet that setting.

I've already got pictures of where I did the Frankencarb, so I'll just use those because it is the exact same procedure.
GM does a pretty good job of explaining it in the CSM

This is how it looks IRL.

Ah, there we go. 7/16" or 14/32", just like the CSM specifies.

 

[69hurstolds]

Enough float bowl for a minute.
The air horn needs a little love. Firstly, the accelerator tubes that were loose got a dab of loctite on them and tapped back into place. One fell out before and one was loose during disassembly.

The TPS is coming, but first we need to reinstall the tiny hex headed adjusting screw #18 back into the air horn. The TPS kit has the aluminum plug to go over the screw once final adjustments are made on the running vehicle.

Here is the adjusting screw installed right behind the accelerator pump lever, but just barely. You want to make this adjustment later.

And now the rich stop screw #22 and the associated spring needs to be installed. It helps when you have the right tool for the job, but again, you don't really have to have it. Just makes it easier.
I installed it all the way in, then two complete turns out. Final adjustment of the rich stop for 1/4" total travel of the solenoid paddle will come later after the air horn is assembled on the carb.

Ok, we can move on with getting the secondary air flap and choke shafts back into the air horn. Oh, and with that a new aftermarket secondary rod cam.

It's a little tricky, but you need to put the cam in the middle slot and then run the air flap shaft through it. I find it easier to do if the air horn is set on its side so the cam can be rotated and positioned easier. Then run the shaft through the cam until its seated. Ensure the air flap wind-up spring stem on the shaft clears the slot on the passenger side. Don't force it.

Install the air flap and air flap screws. Again, you can stake the screws if you wish, or you can loctite them in place. You don't want these getting sucked into the engine either.
Now we can install the spring and set it to a 1/2 turn clockwise past just seated on the secondary air flaps.

Install the windup spring on the shaft tang and work the cylinder through its hole until it engages with the spring. The end result is the cylinder sits inside the spring coil and the little arm puts tension on the shaft when the cylinder is turned clockwise. The set screw has a 3/32" hex end. Using an allen key, turn the screw until it just snugs the cylinder in place, then loosen it just until you can turn the cylinder. The air flaps should just be hanging open, then turn the cylinder clockwise until the air flaps JUST seat closed. Then turn 1/2 more per the chart. Then use the allen key to tighten the set screw and hold the cylinder and spring tension in place. Afterwards, I just sprayed some spray lithium grease on the spring and shaft area.

CSM directions:

This is how it looks IRL.

 

[69hurstolds]

Dragging out the float bowl again:

It's time to insert the guts.

Install the jets, #59, into the float bowl. The special tool has the right size socket to do this. Again, you don't HAVE to have the tool, but it sure makes it easier. No need to put the metering rods, #58, in just yet. Then, drop the float and needle back into place. Be careful not to upset the bend in the float. If you bump it, or have doubts, measure it again once you get the float back in place. But if you were careful, it's already pre-set.

THEN it is time to set the Mixture Control (M/C) Solenoid. This is one of a few CRUCIAL parts of the inner workings of your primary circuit and getting it set correctly is paramount to proper fuel metering operation. If you get the GM parts, you get pretty much all the cool parts you need, save for the metering rods and the jets. #58, #59, #60, #63, #64, #65, and #66 are all included here in the picture. If you get aftermarket (if you can find them) you'll likely need to keep the hardware from the old one.

I got the stuff to set the MC Solenoid lean stop (silver tube, 1.304" long) and the Idle Air Bleed Valve (IABV) setting tool as well. It's that hook-looking tool. The lean stop isn't going to change once you get it done, but the IABV MIGHT have to be adjusted on the car. Can be had under Kent Moore tools J-33815 if you can find a little kit somewhere. You can make your own tools, but why? This is worth it.

Setting the MC Solenoid is pretty straightforward. You assemble the MC Solenoid into place, with the adjusting screw on top of the solenoid housing plate, and the spring underneath that. There's also a housing spring underneath the housing in the bottom of the float bowl, #64. It goes in first and encompasses what looks like a fake phillips head screw under where the solenoid goes, then the solenoid goes in with adjusting bolt. Push down on the solenoid with your thumb to remove spring pressure on the adjusting screw and screw it down until the solenoid guiding "wingtips" are roughly 1/8" or so UNDER the top of the float bowl surface or the screw is bottomed out, whichever comes first. This helps save the threads) Move the paddle out of the way and on the driver side (I guess it wouldn't make any difference which one, but they always use the driver side in the CSM pics) drop the silver tube tool 3315 on top of the jet, with the hole side down to fit over the jet extension. Then put the paddle back in place. Will look something like this (paddle not shown in first two pics so you can see the tool).

Then, using the lean stop screw adjusting tool (or equivalent) while holding the paddle all the way down, adjust the lean stop screw until the paddle JUST TOUCHES the measuring tool. Make sure the paddle wings are not bent or put pressure on the paddle in a manner to not have it straight across. Remember, you're trying to get the LEAN STOP position for both metering rods for this. You don't HAVE to do this, but once you set one side, check the other just to make sure the paddle is level. Sometimes they come from the factory not level. I checked mine and both sides were ok. Here in the pic below I have my adjusting tool in place on the screw and holding down the paddle checking the contact point of the paddle and the measuring tool. This method is more accurate than the "count the number of turns" method. Again, you do you. I'll trust my tools.

As with all CCC sensors/controllers/solenoids, etc., my vote ALWAYS goes for the O.G. ACDelco stuff. I've never been disappointed with them.

In the kit you get a cotter key for the accelerator pump lever roll pin (won't need it here), a positioning spring for the sensor, the sensor, the green teflon extension to the accelerator pump lever, and the screw cap plug, which won't be used until later after the TPS final setting is set on the car.

Spring goes in first, then lithium grease on the TPS body so it can easily slide up and down for adjusting, and the wiring harness just slides into place. Note here, the MC solenoid is complete in place with the paddle, metering rods, and bowl insert plastic. I'll dab the top of the paddle where it contacts the rich stop with some lithium grease as well before air horn placement. The only thing left inside to do is the accelerator pump, the choke shaft and inner choke lever (and the rest of the choke assembly) and then the air horn and gasket can be put on. As usual, you will likely wait until just before the air horn is going to be put on before even attempting to install the accelerator pump. Because it'll just make it weird.

Here's the pump assembly, #68. I took the liberty to replace the original pump diaphragm with one that's ethanol friendly, one of those blue viton ones. A might-as-well.