midnightleadfoot

Hello, What epoxy to use that ethanol fuel won't find away through.?

BillK

I have used JB Weld and it works fine. I always use the slow setting version not the 5 minute stuff.



Someone makes a kit to repair the plugs with an o-ring setup. Have not tried them yet.

Koda

Are you sure it's the bowl plugs? The rumors of those leaking are exaggerated, I believe it's only a couple years in the 60s that actually do it. I presume you put the thing on a bench and filled it with gas and watched the bottom.

midnightleadfoot

Nope, have not removed the carb, But if it sits, the bowl goes dry, but the car will instantly start then after a second die, then take a ton of cranking and then start, and run normally, and restart fine, drive 2 minutes or an hour, it will restart just fine. but if you let it sit more than 7 hours it does what I listed above.

Sugar Bear

Has proper choke closing been confirmed? Leaking well plugs are possible; but, a problem with the choke is more likely and aligns with the symptoms.

Good luck!!!

joe_padavano

I've rebuilt too many Qjets where the epoxy has been loose and peeling off the plugs. More to the point, unless you have a 66-67 Qjet with the stamped steel cup plugs, it is highly unlikely that your plugs are leaking. Unfortunately, the plugs have been unfairly blamed for every Qjet ill imaginable. Since the epoxy gets applied during a rebuild, one never knows if it was the epoxy or the rebuild that fixed the problem, but obviously it MUST have been the epoxy...


If you really think the plugs are leaking, remove the carb, prop it up over a piece of white paper on the bench, fill the bowl with fuel through the vent tube, and let it sit overnight. If the plugs are really leaking, the paper will be wet or stained. If there is no stain, guess what? The plugs are not your problem.

midnightleadfoot

With it in the 80* out, and even pumping the crap out of the pedal it doesn't help. I'd think if it was the choke issue, it be hard starting everytime it got cooled off, 4 hours later you can crank it and it fires right up.
Even after my shift when I go to leave at 7am it start right up, but if you let it sit for say, I get home at 730am and don't try to start it till 20 past 10 pm it is a bitch to start, most times once it starts after cranking the crap out of it, it stinks of raw fuel out the pipes, then clears up and is fine. I'll double check the choke function, but it worked to the correct closing after one tap of the pedal when cool, (sat overnight)
seems to get harder to start the hotter it was in the daytime, on a cooler day, it doesn't start right up but doesn't take nearly as long to crank and fire off. on hot days, (mid 80's+ and car in sun) you can smell fuel if you walk by the hood, open hood, remove air cleaner, and no fuel external leaks. Engine is not getting hot/overheating, running to boil the fuel out of the carb. if it was that it not matter if the air temp was 72 or 85. it do it every time I drove to or from work.
only other thing I can think of is the rubber tip of the float jet , allowing the fuel to drain back, but I've never seen that before . or maybe a sunk float.
At the moment I'm waiting for it to sit long enough after a 1/2 hour drive , in the days heat mid/high 80's in the sun, and I'll pour some fuel into the bowl vent and see if it fires right off. It acts like a dry bowl, and once the pump refills it, fired off, and is fine. It does run like crap until warmed up. off idle stumble, once warmed up it smooth.
Problem is I have my winter car apart fixing it's little issues, So I can't just rip the carb off and go to town. I'd love it to be just a choke issue. it seemed to function correctly last time I checked it, but stranger things have happened.


Other than checking the choke function and looking for fuel leaks, I haven't had time to screw with it.


Been try'n to dig 10" down in and area, so I can put down a nice base (3/4 stone/etc)for a tent garage, and after a few hours of digging, after work I'm beat. 'm not per doctors orders , to be doing it anyways. but I do a little every few days, but man do I pay dearly for a few days for it.

76olds

BUT WAIT... THERE'S MORE haha !
Have you tried to open the butterfly on the car ( stick a screw driver in it or turn the choke stat out until its wide open ) and start it after sitting for the same period of time as hard start?
Give that a shot if you don't have the time to pull the Carb to check the well plugs.
Just my thoughts!
Do what the DR ordered, not worth making the pain worse IMO.
Eric

droldsmorland

Nothing equipped with a carburetor should have ethanol gas running thru it.
Get Ruggles and Roes books and study. The QJet is an impressive piece of engineering if tuned properly.

Sugar Bear

What year and model, is the engine/carb original?

If after 4 hours it fires, the fuel bowl isn't leaking. Get a spark tester and check for spark when it will not start. Could be a coil, condenser and/or module if equipped failing during heat soak. Try to diagnose between spark and fuel first.

Good luck!!!

midnightleadfoot

Not spark related, even when it needs to crank and crank, the 1st turn of the key it fires,up then stalls, Dads car did this decades ago, and it was fuel leaking into the intake, And why I was thinking the bowl plugs.


car is a 75, no idea if the carb is the original or not.
not a heat soak issue, it restarts fine when hot, or after a drive then sitting for 20 minutes heat soaking.


Hoping in the am to recheck the operation of the choke, to rule that out. Also going to check the egr for it sticking open, but I'm doubting that.


Sadly work/job gets in the way of best laid out plans, I'm off tomorrow, but rumor has it, 2 people called out and as I type this am waiting for the call "can you come in today" And up in smoke goes checking the chock operation/egr etc etc.
I'd love to say no, but the o/t helps pay for the upgrades on the cutlass, so.. tis is life.

midnightleadfoot

I've had that book for a decade. lol.
The plan, was to drive the car as I bought it, for this season, and then come winter redo the q jet/etc. it started fine all winter and spring, only once it got into the 80's did this start. sadly because the winter beater is apart getting it's needed work done, I can't have the olds down, for a day or two. at the moment I'm waiting on the r'n'r kit and float and carb to intake gasket. want it all here before I start, so nothing keeps me from getting to work, like waiting on a part. Sadly the local auto parts stores don't stock much for 43 y/o cars..lol.

midnightleadfoot

Is there a place I can run the #'s on the q jet to know what it was off of, the car came with a spare q-jet. came with a ton of parts, 4 water pumps(new) 2 fuel pumps(new) 45 oil filters, lol you get the picture. if I can find out what it was from, I might r'n'r' it while driving the olds to work, and then just swap it.
sadly the spare q jet isn't new or a rebuilt one, it is a used take off. and will need r'n'r before swapped on. well, let me put it this way, I'll not swap it on until it is rebuilt,cleaned/etc.

Koda

Most people know what the numbers are here.

cherokeepeople

i will go one further.anything with a steel gas tank should not run ethanol.that stuff is nasty.years ago the carb kits had a small sponge that came in the box,looked like a hippo butt,this was to go in that well to keep the plugs from leaking,it's been probably 20 years since i bought a carb kit so don't know if they still come in em.

cherokeepeople

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rochester-Q...75.c100623.m-1
these.

Koda

Ok those do look like a cross section of the rear of a hippo.

joe_padavano

Every Qjet carb kit I've ever bought already had one of those pads in it. Again, unless there is fluid coming out of the carb when you leave it on the bench overnight, there is no leak. That's a trivially easy thing to test and costs nothing to do.

Olds64

Ain't it the truth. Hope you can get your Q-jet running smoothly.

x2 for JB weld to seal up the leaky fuel bowl. Even if it isn't leaking it's a simple repair to do when you rebuild the carb. A leaky fuel filter inlet and sloppy throttle plate are also things to watch out for when rebuilding a Q-jet. Unfortunately, replacing the throttle plate bushings isn't something a normal DIYer can do.

ELY442

I use this instead of epoxy.

https://quadrajetparts.com/secondary...lug-p-122.html

joe_padavano

Apparently somebody's making money off the well plug bogeyman.

TripDeuces

Those 'sponges' aren't worth a damn. They get hard as a rock, shrink and will just rattle around in there.

cherokeepeople

i kinda wonder how they hold up to ethanol.probably turn to jello.

OLDSter Ralph

What was the intended function of those sponges ?

joe_padavano

They were supposed to act as a seal/gasket on the well plugs. As others have noted, I've never understood how that was going to work, given that the sponge is porous (but at least it quickly takes a set and no longer presses on the plugs anyway... ).

TripDeuces

The base of the carb has a depression that the well plugs fit into. By placing the sponge in the depression the idea was to compress the sponge against the bottom of the well plugs and seal them off if they were leaking. Great idea but horrible in practice. The engine heat would bake that sponge into a hard wafer that shrunk and lost it's ability to seal anything. Just useless in my opinion.
Do the test as Joe said and then you'll know if it's leaking or not.