Quadrajet flooding and more

[vdb11]

Hey all,

Long story short I put a fresh(er) 350 in my 71 K10, which had a Qjet on it. My old motor had an edelbrock. I want to put the Qjet on but I have run into some problems.

I just rebuilt the carb. Previous to this the carb hadn't been run in over a year. However it will not start/stay running. It appears to be flooding from the very start. It does take some pumping to get it to fire, but the accel pump is pushing fuel into the primaries.

The truck will start with some pumping and then quickly stall. It seems to be flooding because it will blow gas and/or flames from the top of the carb. If I keep my foot into it, it will stay running for maybe 5 seconds then flood out.

The only thing that I messed up when putting it all back together was I made the dumb mistake of drilling out the secondary shaft too large to put the pin back in so the secondary choke lock does not work, but that shouldn't have any bearing on this.

Everywhere I looked said its the float/needle. The seat and needle are new. The float is the old one (I have a new one). When I took the top back off the carb the float was "floating" and not sunk, it was light when I assembled it so I don't "think" its leaking, but I could be wrong.

Any other ideas? I think the timing is pretty close, the Edelbrock ran on it before. Also it has a mechanical fuel pump (stock). The engine and carb are from a 77.

Some things I plan to check next time I have time:
1-Make sure the float hinge pin is pressing up against the top of the carb and holding the float still
2-Try the new float I have.

Any other thoughts or things I should check?

Also, how does the choke work? The secondary choke is sprung shut, but the way mine is set up now, the primary choke is just kinda loose. It has the stock vac choke. Is there supposed to be a pull spring anywhere to hold it closed?

Thanks all!