Iceaxe

1970 Corvette L46. So last night driving to dinner the floats stick on my carburetor. It was simple to diagnose the problem as the electric fuel pump was shoving gas out the top of the carburetor over the top of a hot engine.

Anyhow, two guys parked nearby run over to help. One of the guys grabs a screwdriver and raps the side of the carburetor and the float became unstuck.

The guy asks how often I drive the car and I tell him about once a month, to which he replies the floats are drying out and getting sticky. He also tells me to just run a bottle of Lucas Injecter Cleaner through the gas tank and my problem will go away.

I added the Lucas and have now driven the car about 50 miles without the issue returning.

So I want to know if the fix is really this simple or is the Lucas just a temporary bandaid. FWIW the carb was rebuilt about 10 years (10k miles) ago. Since I added the Lucas the car has run perfectly. Thanks

7t9l82

It's the needle and seat that stuck the Lucas may help but keep a screwdriver handy.lol. if it happens again you may want to change the needle and seat. Ethanol really screws things up.

cv67

x2
Just pulled the 850 off mine today, o ring on the needle and seats are shot....probably from sitting for a few years. Same as yours, stuck floats

Gotta drive these things or stuff goes bad .

Iceaxe

Thanks for the feedback. Looks like I'll be learning how to replace the needle and seat. I assume the carb has to come off? And any suggestions on where to purchase quality replacements as I prefer to only fix things once.

ronarndt

I replaced the needle, seat and floats in my QFT 750 dbl pumper with a kit that claimed to be resistant to the effects of ethanol gas. I recall there were a couple types of needle/seats available, made out of different materials. There probably are similar kits for quadrajets.

pigfarmer

Leery of additives but SeaFoam does help if you're worried about the gas. Personally I'd be taking it apart. If it flooded down that bad I'd change the oil sooner rather than later too.

My L46 did something just like that once. Pulled into a parking lot and was under the hood with my brother standing next to me with a fire extinguisher and the car smoking like a chimney. Some kid with a weed whacker came out of nowhere and was asking me "how many horsepower" and "how many camshafts does it have." Eh? Even on the verge of bursting into flames people seem to love these cars ......

I can't avoid the ethanol around here. I just pulled apart the carb on my 12 year old lawn tractor which has been fed nothing but 87 octane E10. Know what I found in there? Not much. If the ethanol had done something horrible I didn't find it. $5 for a needle & seat and it's back in business for another decade or more. I realize it causes problems but I take care of any machines I have and just haven't seen it rain frogs yet because of ethanol. The most direct effect it that it reduces fuel economy

Iceaxe

Just thought I'd update this thread. It's now been two months and about 300 miles since I had issues with sticking floats. Since adding the Lucas Fuel Injection Cleaner the issue has not returned. That is all...

sstopczy

That's good. Read through the thread and just thought I would let you know you don't have to take the carb off to change the float and needle/seat if you still decide to do it down the road. You will need to remove the air horn (top portion of the carb) but not the whole thing. It might be easier to remove enitre thing as you will be bending over the fenders to do it all.