As part of my engine bay rebuild, I tore apart everything to get it properly plated. That included the carbs and all associated linkages. I'm at the point I'm putting it back together and ready to balance and set fuel mixture from scratch. I've read a bunch of the articles around the necessary steps but one step has me wondering if there is alternate information out there I missed that may help me. From what I gather, there are a few "pre-start" steps to put the carbs in so you get close enough to get a smooth first start. Loosen the center linkage nuts, back off the fast idle screw, back off the rear carb balance screw, seat the jets to top then back off 2 turns, and back off the throttle screws to initial contact then turn down 1.5 turns. I have no smog setup so the other balance screw does nothing.

That last one is where the question comes in. With all the linkages in the way and my old eyes its really hard to see when the throttle screw is making initial contact with the linkage. I've tried getting stubby fingers up in there to feel the screw head, I've tried to hold the linkage to feel the initial resistance when the screw touched, etc. So my question is, is there a way to seat the throttle screw all the way down and back it off a certain number of turns like we do the jets rather than this method? It would be so much easier to just screw it all the way in and back it out a certain amount than trying to determine initial contact when you cant see anything.

I'm not yet good enough to tune by ear so these type of "mechanical' tips seem to work best for me. In fact I stumbled onto that colortune set of instructions for fuel mixture and if it works as advertised its perfect for someone like me. "Seeing" the ignition seems a lot easier than trying to listen to it for someone like me without the experience of the gang here. I've ordered a set that will hopefully arrive this week.

I put my carbs on after a rebuild but had the linkage "flats" out of order. It shot up to 2500rpm, scared me. Once I got those figured out after looking at a lot of pictures and diagrams I used Blues Quick and Dirty tune for the initial run in then more specific with the air flow tool. Hopefully you get something useful out of this.

Sort of a Mcgiver moment here. Just a thought, Since you can’t see it can you get a very thin feeler gauge in there. Run it down until it makes contact and remove the gauge. At least you will be extremely close. Who knows it may work..

3 hours ago, Yarb said:

Sort of a Mcgiver moment here. Just a thought, Since you can’t see it can you get a very thin feeler gauge in there. Run it down until it makes contact and remove the gauge. At least you will be extremely close. Who knows it may work..

I was thinking about that, just didn't have something in the moment. I'm going to poke around a little, maybe even a mirror like on a dental tool type situation.

5 hours ago, siteunseen said:

Thanks for the thread post, will get to it in a moment, but this looks like the adjustment screw for the smog apparatus not the throttle one if I'm not mistaken. This particular screw doesn't matter in my setup as I pulled all the smog stuff.

You could cut a feeler gauge out of a coke can...

Thanks all. Well, I think I made some progress here by tweaking as needed until its running smooth. Both carbs are air balanced where it sits and it starts immediately with a single flip of the key when engine is cold so that's good I would think lol. I have yet to play with any fine tuning of mixture and probably need to check timing again to be sure its all still where it should be. My only rpm gauge at the moment is the dash and not exactly sure how accurate that could be. I have a timing light with rpm meter on its way to dial it in and then move to mixture. I really appreciate all the help and guidance.

Maybe someone with good ears can check out how this sounds in this small video? I can't tell a ping from a knock lol :-) This is taken at what the gauge in the dash says is ~1k with the temp almost at normal operating.

Beautiful Engine bay!

12 minutes ago, Yarb said:

Beautiful Engine bay!

Thanks. I've been working so hard taking it all apart, replating, cleaning, reinstalling it all. Hopefully it runs or i have to trailer it to the show lol. Better pic attached.

Very Nice Job!

Are those headers from Sean?