Details 1988 Dodge Truck, moter had been rebuilt 2 owners ago, Mild
cam, Rochester Quadrajet (Modified) Dual Pickup Ignition


My friend had bought a Dodge truck a couple of years back and has
had problems with it since she bought it. She had taken it many places
for tune ups oil changes ect but some problems have always remained:
poor Idle, wouldn't pass emmissions, and high gas usage. I decided to
look at it myself lately. First addressed the the carberator because she
had just got it tuned up. It smelt of gas after turning off used alot of
fuel, rough starting cold & Hot, ok Acceleration. I got a rebuilding
kit, Took it apart and realized it was custom built, It was supposed to
have an electronic pump but was replaced with a mechanical one, and the
airhorn assembly was not the one for that style of body the front vac
break assm. cannot open the secondary butterfly fully. I replaced the
needle, float ect put it back together and it still idles rough although
it is eaisier starting and the gas smell has gone. I am going to get
another carb, we are not interested in preformance so much as economy so
I was thinking of getting a used (complete) Quadrajet from a junkyard or
does someone recomend an aftermarket? I priced the quad at a junkyard
for 45.00 an aftermaket holley is 385.00


Since the Idle was still rough I checked Spark plugs they were very
worn and carbonized, one wire fell apart and they all looked pretty old
so I replaced all of them with the plugs, since these two components
were so bad I checked the distributor cap and roter both pitted very
badly so I changed them as well ( I dont know what kind of "tune up" was
done but I am going to ask) after this I notice a defanate change in the
overall operation but the idle is still rough like it is missing (as
before). I got a timing light and checked it. It is no where near the
timing scale the If you can amagine the timing mark being at 2:00 the
crank indicator (at idle) is at 4:00 turning thr distributor I can get
it to about 3:00 and it hardly wants to run( this is advancing it) when
I rev it up the mark moves (advances) but sill not even close. The
correct timing is 12 Deg

I think it had mechanical and vacume advance

I have checked for vac leaks and found none I did however applied
manual vac to the vacume advance and it did not move and I couldnt get a
vacume on it Is it bad?

So can anyone tell me
1: how or why the timing mark is so wacked out could someone installed
somthing incorrectly?
2 How can It be put it in time? should I rotate the motor till #1 is
TDC and make my oun mark
3 Can The Carb Still be way off and can it effect the timing

Any help will be greatly appritiated

nickpo (AT) comcast (DOT) net
tb800 (AT) comcast (DOT) net

"nick podobensky" <tb800 (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote

Sounds like the cam was not properly timed when it was installed and is
off 1 or more teeth. Since a supposedly "mild" cam was put in the idiots
probably discovered that the original carb couldn't handle it thus they
hacked up the carb, then hacked around with the timing to get the thing
to work.

It probably can't, although you can take it apart and make sure the cam
is on the right tooth. But it may be impossible to keep idling then. The
only way to find out is to experiment. If the cam is too radical there's no
way it will pass emissions, though.

Ted