Hello,

I haven't been on the boards for almost a year but I would like to thank all of you who have previously helped me with my late grandfather's Buick. My dad and I were finally able to get it running this past Sunday! The last time the Buick ran was November 26, 1992. It has logged about six miles in twenty years. I'm hoping to get the odometer rolling again soon. Now that it is running, I need to fine tune it. This is the Super model, with the 322 V8. It has a 2bbl Stromberg carburetor. There are two adjustment screws on the front of the carburetor base. I'm not sure which is air and which is fuel. What other adjustments do I need to be mindful of to make sure I have the carburetor tuned properly?

Thank You,

Justin

HEY awesome glad to hear she's finally tickin!!!

The skinny pedal on the firewall inside the car, that's air LOL

2 bbl carb so each screw is the fuel mixture for one bbl. It really is rather un-formulaic. Sometimes you might find a manual telling you #'s of turns, but it really is best to play trial-and-error with 'em and get it running right that way, major differences can occur with temperature elevation all that good (well not so good really) stuff.

With each one turn it out (counter clockwise) to richen it with some more fuel, in (clockwise) to lean it out. You wanna do one at a time, richen it until it gets stumbly and loaded up with fuel (you might hear it in the exhaust/see black smoke out the tailpipe too, if you can't, get a buddy to help with that) and of course the engine's gonna "roll" a little, shaky and if you sit inside you'll feel the roughness.

Turn the screw slowly so this wont happen all of a sudden and very violently. You'll notice it gradually go from running smooth to getting grumpy and rough. As this happens back off very slowly until it gets smooth. If you back off far enough it will lean out to the point that it will again get rough, but in a different way. It's a little hard to describe but generally the idle will dip way down and if you've ever run out of gas before it will seem like it's doing just that. It will want to stall. Whereas, if youre richening it, eventually yes youll flood it and kill it but it takes much more in that direction to choke it off with fuel than it takes to stall it by not giving it enough fuel.

Once you get it running the best you can with one screw, do the same for the other one. Again it takes some getting used to depending on how well you know the sound and feel of it when it's smooth as it should be. It should rev up smoothly without shuddering the car whether or not you stab the throttle or ease into it. Naturally the throttle response isn't gonna be like a fuel injected suzuki gsxr1000blahblah but you get the idea. I've gotten to the point where on the rare occassion my car starts missin I smack my right palm on top of the air filter and mess with the screws till it feels solid and still.

I'm sure I've overcomplicated the heck out of this, perhaps everyone else here will be able to put it better if I haven't!

At the very least, good luck getting her dialed in!

Zonda nailed it here but I would suggest you drive at least two tanks of gas through the car before trying to make any adjustments. I'm thinking you may have some old fuel in there that would be less volitile( sp) and there is no point tuning a carb to run on that stuff. It may also help to drain the tank to try and remove any water or debris in there before getting too far into this, unless you have already dropped the tank and had it cleaned by a good shop.

Welcome back

Be very careful when adjusting the idle mixture screws on old Strombergs...they "mar" very easily...they're thin and seem very soft. It's easy to put a scratch in them. I guess that's why they're included in new carb rebuild kits. With the engine at operating temp and the choke open, LIGHTLY turn them to the right until they JUST stop or the engine starts to die. Then start backing out until there is no noticeable improvement in the way it idles..THEN, turn the screw back in 1/4 turn. Done, at least until the formulaters change the gas blend or it gets hotter or colder...

Thanks for the tips, I'll play with it this weekend.