Holley Rebuild

[SedateV8]

I have my mates pro street A35 van in my garage for the winter and I've agreed to do a few jobs while its here, first is a rebuild on the 390 Holley.

The kit came today with a million bits, minimal instructions and an exploded diagram, has anyone done one ??

Is there anything tricky ??
Anything tips ??

Cheers
Lee

[Adam]

Lee
Get some gunk or degreaser in an old pot and once the float bowls, metering block and metering plate are off stick them in there to soak so the old gaskets come off easier.

There are a lot of parts in there you will never use as they supply slightly different gaskets for most of the combinations.

The things you will definately change are the float needles, transfer tube O rings, base plate gaskets, vac sec diaphram and gasket (Use a smear of vaseline on this to stop the screws catching the rubber and tearing it). As you take a part off check which of the gaskets you need. They all look very very similar so spend time making sure you have the right one as you could cover an air or fuel hole. Do not file off the raised areas as all this does is promote leaks whatever the latest trend is. They are there to help seal the gaskets.

You best bet re the not so detailed instructions is to take pics as you remove a part and do it somewhere you can lay them out in exploded form. Normally a dam good clean out and the major gaskets changed will suffice.

You can take a dremel to the exposed threads on the butterfly's for a little air flow increase. Also remove the phillips screw on the top of the primary bowl where the acc' pump discharges fuel from (the shooter) and clean that out as if the carb has been standing this gets gummed up and causes a bog thats hard to diagnose.

To ball park set the floats after you have finished turn them upside down and set them parallel to the floor. This will be close enough not to flood the carb or let it run lean.

[Paul G]

Yep , what me brother says (LOL). It's a piece of cake really , the hard part with carbs is designing the body casting , & somebody already did that!
If you are still daunted there is an SA design book called "Holley , rebuilding & modifying" which has step by step photo instructions & lots of helpful hints . I think Real Steel sell it.

[langysrodshop]

For starters

http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/1999/12/holley/

http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/howto/45798/index.html

http://www.jedi.com/obiwan/jeep/wagoneer/401/carb.html

[SedateV8]

Thanks for all the wise words and links,

I'll have a bash this weekend

Cheers
Lee

[Adam]

Thats very nice for you but let us know when your gonna tackle that carb !!!!!

[SedateV8]

Hello

Its going well so far, only thing I cant figure out is how to get the little check ball out of the accel pump, dont want to force the little brass thing, any ideas ??

Cheers
Lee