A few recommendations:
- Use only 100% gasoline, if possible. Even if you have a computer-controlled carburetor, it still can not adjust for the difference and you will have several drivability issues. Also, the Ethanol is not good on most of the fuel parts, anyway.
If you must get Ethanol, only get a couple of gallons so you can fill up at a place selling 100% gasoline. No source of 100% gasoline, then you might want to invest into a 4-bbl appearing (or 2-bbl appearing) fuel injection setup - which can accommodate Ethanol.
- The choke thermostat is a bimetallic spring that has a 10 to 20-year lifespan. If yours hasn’t been changed (which I would assume, if it had been changed, its due for replacement again) then I would do so, again. It bolts to the intake manifold and has a rod going to top of passenger side of carburetor. If you can’t find a new choke thermostat, let me know for I can get you pointed into the right direction.
- Check for vacuum leaks. Check for missing or improperly routed vacuum hoses. If you had the computer removed or other modifications, that might require a bit of detective work. You might be surprised on how something like a split vacuum hose can cause the amount of problems that it does.
- The carburetor might need a good cleaning and adjustment settings checked.
Avoid getting a “rebuilt” or “reman” carburetor. Major carburetor rebuilders will take a certain number of “similar but not matching” carburetors (like say 30 of Carter BBD’s) and strip them down to induvial parts tossing each of “same item” into different piles. They will take all linkage to get stripped and replated (sometimes, sometimes not) and so forth. Then they take the parts and reassemble them. I would say that 80% (note: this estimate might be on the low side) of “rebuilt” or “reman” carburetors only are using 15 to 25% of the correct parts. Baseplates that don’t match its gasket, jets which are way wrong size, tops that don’t match the bases or middle bodies and so on/so forth.
I’ve worked on hundreds of carburetors for Chrysler. I would say ½ are simple cleaning, adjustments and the occasional sunk float or bad choke pull-off. The other ½ are fixing more substantial problems from recent “rebuilt/reman” installs which used incorrect and/or mismatched parts.
I am against using parts from China.
That said, there is a recent supply of brand-new Carter BBD knockoff carburetors on eBay (which are from Asia, somewhere). I “think” someone either purchased the Carter patents or reverse engineered the parts to make duplicates. I purchased one of them about 7-10 years ago (can’t remember exactly when) and installed it onto my computer-controlled ’86 Fifth Ave 318. Up until recently, it has been working well for me, but just last weekend I have a stopped-up air bleed that needs cleaned out (a similar "complaint" to what you have). I just bought a rebuild kit and have the carburetor on my workbench for an overhaul. I even tried a few times to sneak out to the garage to do so (this weekend), but wife kept calling me back to “other things”.
Before I would purchase a “rebuilt” or “reman” carburetor (which, for the most part, a huge waste of money), I would consider cleaning yours, send yours to a shop who will rebuild yours or get a new one. I don’t see much of an issue with rebuilt or reman parts – except for carburetors.
Note: your ’88 will either have a Holley 6280 2-bbl or a QuadraJet 4-bbl. The Carter BBD and Holley 6280 are similar carburetors but there are some differences between the two (one will not bolt directly in place of the other).
BudW
