BBD will not idle, AT ALL.

Hey guys:

I've spent the last month working on the 1975 Duster Custom I picked up a while back.

One thing was to overhaul the carb. When we drove it home, it tried to die at every stop. It pretty much wouldn't idle, plus it had a distinct whistle.

Well I went through it top to bottom. It did not have clogged idle tubes, or any other clogged passage I could find. I cleaned it thoroughly in solvent and blew everything out with brake cleaner.

I did find that the throttle shaft was loose, and the throttle plates appeared to have been removed and hammered on(don't ask me why).


I salvaged another good baseplate and used that. When I put it back on, it's only running off the main circuit. No idle at all.

I pulled it again and double-checked my work. I discovered that I had used the wrong base to carb body gasket, but even so it did not restrict the idle passages. I corrected that and also switched out the thick idle mixture screws for thin ones.

Long story short is I'm no further along than I was. It doesn't even try to fire and run without pumping the accelerator. It runs ok if I keep it revved but as soon as I try to idle it, it quits dead.

I've seen retarded timing do this, and I'll check that, but is there a hidden passage somewhere in that carb I might not have gotten a blockage out of?

Thanks!