Carter BBD issues, 1973 318

[TaffetaMocha]

Have been trying to get the car to idle for awhile now, will only start and run for a little bit if I fill the float bowl manually. Have replaced the fuel pump and tested flow, works well. When I remove the fuel line, there is pressure built up that spurts fuel out. Do I have a needle issue? What is the next step I should take? I have already rebuilt the carb.

 

[65Port]

I assume you are removing the line at the carburetor and seeing fuel come out? If so, then yes, you may still have something going on in the carb.. a few things:

-How was the engine running before the carb rebuild?
-Did you soak the carb body? Was there a lot of gunk in it?
-Old fuel can be hard to remove internally (if you ran old fuel through it)

You can try gently tapping the carb with the handle of a screwdriver to see if something is stuck while cranking (two people needed).

 

[TaffetaMocha]

I assume you are removing the line at the carburetor and seeing fuel come out? If so, then yes, you may still have something going on in the carb.. a few things:

-How was the engine running before the carb rebuild?
-Did you soak the carb body? Was there a lot of gunk in it?
-Old fuel can be hard to remove internally (if you ran old fuel through it)

You can try gently tapping the carb with the handle of a screwdriver to see if something is stuck while cranking (two people needed).

1. It was having the same issue before I rebuilt it, although I discovered the needle had fallen out of place before I rebuilt it. The needle looks fine from the inlet this time, but the same issue persists.
2. Yes, Everything was pretty much new-looking on the inside when I opened it up, apart from the gaskets of course which I replaced.
3. No Old fuel, drained the gas tank and put about 10 gallons in before cranking. Old fuel was in the carb when I was rebuilding it.

I'll try tapping it like you said

 

[65Port]

The float was set correctly and checked for proper movement with needle?
The float good? Did you shake it to see if it has any leaks?

 

[TaffetaMocha]

The float was set correctly and checked for proper movement with needle?
The float good? Did you shake it to see if it has any leaks?

Float is good and buoyant, I did not check the needle movement. So I guess I should open the top and see

 

[CBODY67]

When I bought my 1980 Newport 360 2bbl (318-size BBD from the factory in 1980), I knew it had an issue of running just fine on the main system, but would not idle when it was not on fast idle. If you were coasting to an off-ramp at 65mph, it would die.

No issues with fuel delivery OR the electronic unit hanging on the side of the air cleaner. Pulled the carb apart and all of the passages would flow spray carb cleaner.

In my stack of Chrysler service manuals, in the carb section, I kept seeing a spec for "Low Speed Jet". I finally found an illustration of where it was, near the bottom of the idle fuel feed tube, which is a part of the venturi cluster. Probably EVERY Carter carburetor has one of those restrictions in their idle feed tubes! I noticed that the spec varied widely as to emissions specs.

NOW that I knew ehere the "jet" was, I took things apart, removed the venturi cluster, and probed the bottom of the idle feed tubes to see what was there. Starting with the smallest wire on my bent-wire spark plug gap gauge, the bottom of the tube felt a bit crusty, but it opened for each progressivesly-larger wire. When I could not probe with a larger wire, I figured that was the largest diameter of the jet.

I then went to a local hobby shop, which had a selection of Twist Drills and such. I found one that had drills smaller than I needed. I got back to the shop and laid things out. I started with the smallest drill and worked upward, progressively, cleaning out "the crust" at the bottom of the idle feed tubes. When I went just large enough to "get brass", I stopped there. I flushed the tubes out with spray carb cleaner and put things back together. The car cold-started as normal, but when it came off of fast idle, it IDLED as it should. I confirmed the hot base idle adjustment and that was 30 yrs ago.

SO, I would recommend you do similar with your BBD. Just to make sure things are as they need to be. Hopefully it can improve things, though.

Just my experiences,
CBODY67

 

[MoPar~Man]

@TaffetaMocha you might want to check out FABO (the A-body site) because there are a lot of people there with small-block 318 experience. The C-bodies didn't tend to come with the 318 but mine did (being a Canadian car). The (rebuilt) 318 in my '67 Monaco ran well enough but I wasn't liking how the plugs were blacking up and I couldn't get a smooth low-rpm idle. I bought a low-price china clone of the BBD a couple years ago, I think it works better than the original BBD but I haven't been focused on engine tuning lately but I will soon. I had a '73 Satellite with 318 also with BBD. You should check timing, have a timing gun with a dial, and have an RPM meter, some guns have one built in. And get a vacuum gage. I think all of those are necessary to tune the BBD (or probably any carb). I think today's gasoline throws extra curve-balls when tuning these carbs if your area doesn't sell non-ethanol gas. And maybe you need a thicker base gasket, like 1/4 or 3/8 inch thick. Also make sure it's the right base gasket. Depending on your throttle plate there needs to be, or not, a channel cut into the gasket.