[DurocShark]

None of the kits I've looked at include the power valve. That's ok, they're only $20 or so.

[DurocShark]

The carb kit I got from Rock Auto had the power valve. And the whole kit was only $19. Sweet...

I did the rebuilt today. A bit of a bear to get to in the van, but not impossible.

Ground out notches in the base to remove the @#%#$^ @@ plugs:


carbbase by don tpics, on Flickr

Amazingly the thing fired right up after reinstalling the carb. I was in shock!

A few very minor tweaks to the mixture and I had a rock solid 22 inches of vacuum. I did notice the old needle valves were sticky, and there was a missing vacuum line that I replaced. But otherwise, the recent rebuild seemed ok. No varnish buildup that I could find outside of the black gunk in two of the throats (amazingly, being that this is an RV).

We'll see if what I did is enough to pass smog...

[819fva]

I am interested in finding out if it passes the sniff test. I hope you let us know.

[DurocShark]

I will. I haven't had time to take it in yet. In fact, I'm going to miss my free retest (the 19th) so I'll have to pay another $70 when I take it on Saturday. Sigh.

[DurocShark]

Well, after all that it failed. The numbers were better, but not better enough.

Need to get a mechanic with a sniffer...

[MichaelJennnings]

Easiest way to adjust a carb w/o a gas analyzer is with a tach. Adjust the mixture to the highest rpm possible then back off till the rpm drops about 15-20 rpms on each side. Screwing the mixture screw out will richen and in leans it. You will want to go rich until the max rpm is reached then back lean to achieve the rpm drop. This will usually get rid of any lean misfire and not cause the car to run rich.

[dyngrngalaxie]

You've certainly had some of the best weigh in here. Here's a strange one. My friend had an '89 crown vic wagon and an '89 colony park. One of them wouldn't pass emissions and didn't run very well either. Granted his were fuel injected while yours has a carb, but here's what he found: Yanked bosch plugs and installed motorcraft. Bit of tuning by tech at Ford dealer and it passed. I'm going to say the car was about 10 years old when he encountered this. Go figure????

[Canuck623]

I wouldn't put Bosch plugs in my lawn mower.

[dyngrngalaxie]

My friend is nobody's fool when it comes to finances. Many of their cars are headed toward the salvage yard. He'll buy them and manage to get 2 or 3 years out of them. That particular vehicle had the bosch plugs when he bought it. You sure wouldn't expect the plugs to make that much difference. Anyhow, hopefully our friend here gets his vehicle to pass.