Edelbrock 1406 Carb Rebuild

[greyghost]

I'm working on a 1406 I took off my '79 300 parts car. One of the floats had fuel in it. I ended up buying the floats separately. They didn't come with the Edelbrock rebuild kit I got from O'Reilly's. Both of my primary jets were seized and the screw driver slot stripped out. The secondaries came out OK. I bought a "Speed-Out" screw extractor which, shockingly, failed miserably on the first attempt at removing a primary. The screw extractor end of the bit I used, felt like the flutes were cut at the wrong angle when I checked them with my fingernail. I was using a De Walt 1/4" electric impact. So I did not go at it full bore. I was hoping that a slow controlled hammer action would help. It did not. The extractor just smoothed out the brass into a tapered hole. I ended up using a 1/4" left hand twist drill bit which did get the brass out and I was able to restore the thread which appears to be a standard 5/16-18 NC. (I couldn't find it anywhere online what the thread size was! I ended up gauging it off the secondaries!) Now, in the process of drilling out the brass, I kissed the aluminum bottom of the hole where the jet seats. Is the carb now junk or can I clean up the seat using a 1/4" bottom drill or end mill by hand? I know this changes the height of the jet and I'm not sure how it affects the rod. Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[AL_Brad]

I've seen new 1406 carbs on FB Marketplace that people bought and decided not to use for $200... don't waste a lot of time and $$ on rebuilding something that's very easy to replace. My 2c

 

[Ele115]

MAYBE. Try it. The rod wont care, all that matters is the jet. The jet cares about the hole it threads into. So you can try it and see. If it's super duper rich(or won't idle), you have a parts carb now. You may get lucky, may not. Depends on how much aluminum you lost and the threads. You won't know til you run it, but really, just try it. Nobody knows until you do and even if you screwed it up, there is nothing wrong with having a bunch of good spare parts. That's where a lot of mine came from, screwed up carbs. The throttle (base) plate alone is worth having as a spare.

 

[greyghost]

Thanks for your input Al and Elle! I already picked up a used 1406 but will continue with the rebuild on the first one as per Elle's advice. My brother gave me the same advice. I will eventually rebuild the second one as a back-up. I'll let you know how things work out.