QJ From Hell
THE QUADRAJET FROM HELL
by Doug Kitchener
Starring: Gary Cameron, Fred Nissen, Doug Kitchener and Mike Furman.
Featuring: Gary's '67 Ninety-Eight convertible.
RATED "R"; CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE (Profanity and Tool Throwing) Some language may be unsuitable for young readers.
It began as a simple carburetor rebuild, but it mutated into The Quadrajet From Hell!
Scene 1, "The Plan" - The Capitol City Rockets Spring Dustoff, 29 April 1991.
Gary Cameron, his '67 Ninety-Eight convertible, Fred Nissen, Doug Kitchener and Mike Furman are all at the Capitol City Rockets Chapter's Spring Dustoff. The Ninety- Eight has just been liberated from winter storage and is running well except for a minor hesitation. All the players in this drama know that this problem can be cured by a simple carburetor rebuild and have discussed it before. A brilliant logistical plan is conceived. Fred, CCR's advisor on Quadrajets, lives in Alexandria, VA and has offered to rebuild Gary's carburetor. Doug, who lives in Gaithersburg, MD says that he will remove the carb from the car because Gary, who lives in Silver Spring, MD doesn't have a lot of experience mechanically. Doug will then give the carburetor to Mike, his neighbor, who is Sales Manager at Stohlman Oldsmobile in Alexandria, two miles from Fred's home. Mike will take the carb to work where Fred will pick it up, clean and rebuild it, and return it to Mike, who will return it to Doug, who will reinstall it on the Ninety-Eight. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the Washington, DC area, Gaithersburg and Alexandria are about 50 minutes apart, Gaithersburg and Silver Spring are about 25 minutes apart, and Silver Spring is about 45 minutes from Alexandria). Got it? This is to be completed by May 29, the date when Gary's everyday car, a hated leased Jetta, is to be turned in. After that, he plans to use the Ninety-Eight daily through the summer.
Scene 2, "The Rebuild" - Tuesday, May 21 through Friday, May 24.
The plan goes into effect with a slight variation. Neither Fred nor Gary has room to park a dead car for the three days or so that the rebuild and pickup / delivery will take, so Doug drives his reserve vehicle, a '69 Cutlass wagon, over to Gary's, ditches it there, picks up the Ninety-Eight and drives it back to his house. On the way he discovers that the Ninety-Eight's headlights are inoperative (*%#@$!) but gets home just before dark, yanks the carburetor off and takes it over to Mike. Gary calls. "How's it going?" "Fine, except your low beams aren't working." "Oh yeah, one of 'em's burned out." "Yeah, well, they're both burned out now."
Wednesday morning, Mike takes the carburetor into work. Fred picks it up late that afternoon, disassembles it and begins the cleaning process. He notices that the original fuel inlet fitting has been replaced by a self-tapping fitting, used when the inlet threads on the carburetor have been stripped. This causes him some moderate concern, so he inspects the threads, but they don't seem to be too bad and he feels that with a couple of layers of Teflon tape and two gaskets, an original- type fitting and fuel filter will work fine. The cleaning and rebuilding is completed Thursday evening. Mike's day off is Friday, so no Alexandria-to- Gaithersburg return shuttle service is available until Saturday. Doug has some parts and information to exchange with Fred and nothing pressing to do on Friday night so he rides over to Alexandria to pick up the Quadrajet and accomplish the other missions, planning to reinstall the carburetor the next day, Saturday.
Scene 3, "The Reinstallation", Saturday May 25 - Sunday May 26.
Doug installs the carburetor on the intake manifold, hooks up the throttle and choke linkages and reconnects the two vacuum hoses. He then tries to connect the fuel line, but the OE-type fitting will not stay threaded into the carb, after several tries. Reluctantly the self-tapping fitting is installed. Doug can feel it cutting threads into the carburetor inlet but is anxious to get the job done, so doesn't dwell on it. The car starts easily idles pretty well even with Fred's static adjustment, and there are no fuel leaks. Good. A minor adjustment of the idle mixture screws and a tweak to the idle speed, and we're off for a test drive. Wow, this thing sure runs better! Later on, Doug ventures out to run the car back over to Gary in Silver Spring. After three blocks, trouble. Low idle speed, no power, black smoke from the exhaust. *%#@$! This thing acts like it's loading up or flooding or something. Limp back to the house, check all settings again, call Fred. "Maybe a piece of debris got stuck in the fuel bowl, try reseating the mixture screws and readjusting them." Seems to work, car is running okay again, but too late and too tired to take it over to Silver Spring.
Next day, Doug is busy all day, a super hot one. He plans to drive the Ninety-Eight over to Gary's about dusk. Evening, time to go deliver the Ninety-Eight. He jumps in the car, fires it up, puts the down top, turns on the headlights, backs out- wait! *%#@$! No headlights, remember?! Both low beams are burned out. He shuts down and goes back into the house for a pair of used headlights and a Phillips screwdriver. He removes headlight trim ring on the driver's side. The retaining ring is held on with slotted screws, not Phillips. Back into the house for a straight blade screwdriver. It's getting darker all the time, he'll have to do this by the light of the spotlight in front of the house. No problem, should be straightforward. The retaining ring is removed. Hmmmm, interesting design. The headlight bucket seems to float in the core support, held in place by the aiming screws and the headlight retaining ring. The ring is secured to the core support by a spring, and to the headlight bucket by the two slotted screws. This makes the headlight installation a real pain! *%#@$! One half hour later, the left headlight is in and Doug's fingertips have been cut to ribbons by the sharp edges of the headlight retaining ring. Install the trim ring. Oops, the speednut has fallen off the headlight bucket. Tear everything apart and start over again, continuing to shred fingertips in the process. Repeat process (and magic words) for passenger side headlamp and hope that the *%#@$! speednut doesn't fall off (it doesn't, thank goodness). He drives over to Gary's with both headlights working; Gary takes the car out onto Washington's Capital Beltway ("Wow, it sure runs better!") and runs it for two exits or so. The Ninety-Eight performs flawlessly. Another satisfied customer.
When they get back to Gary's, Doug discovers that the right rear tire of his RocketWagon is almost flat. *%#@$! It had a slow leak which has decided to speed up for some reason. He limps to a nearby Amoco station. No tire gauge in the wagon; when you have eight cars, equipping each one of them with a tire gauge becomes a moderately expensive proposition. He puts enough air in the tire so that it doesn't look low. Don't worry about it, it seems to be leaking out fast enough that in a couple of days it will be low again anyway.
Scene 4, "Trouble", Wednesday May 29 - Monday June 3.
Gary calls Doug at work, reports that the car almost quit the day before, black smoke, no power, no idle, gas pouring out of the carburetor. *%#@$! Doug calls Fred, who feels that there must be some thread material from the fitting which is clogging the needle valve. Nobody has time to mess with it until early Saturday morning, so the car sits. Gary is able to commandeer his wife JoAnn's '62 Dodge Dart because JoAnn is laid up from having foot surgery. Gary then finds out that he has to go out of town on Saturday; he covers the White House for Reuters News Picture Service and President Bush is going up to West Point to deliver the commencement address. At 7:00 Saturday morning Fred and Doug converge on the Ninety-Eight at Gary's house. Gary has left at about 5AM, but left them a continental breakfast of orange juice and blueberry muffins. Fred has the carb off and apart when Doug arrives and sure enough, the fuel bowl is full of metal and Teflon tape shavings left when the self-tapping fitting was installed. They decide that the only solution is to try and have the carb heli-coiled, a process whereby a replacement thread is installed. Doug has a friend who has a shop which is open until noon and can probably do the work, so he takes the carburetor straight up there while Fred retreats to his own weekend projects. Doug gets up to his friend's shop and they don't have a 7/8-20 helicoil, it's a bastard size. Gary calls on Sunday and says that he will call around on Monday about the helicoil. He calls twelve or fifteen machine shops, carburetor shops and speed shops in the Washington/Baltimore area, none of them have the helicoil. Doug and Fred are surprised, but they decide that the one other carb that they have seen with a helicoil must have been through a rebuilder. Gary has located and purchased a special compression-style fitting which he delivers to Doug.
Scene 5, "The Second Try", Tuesday June 4
Doug installs the fitting in the carb and goes over to Gary's to put the carb back on the car. It's after dark but the installation is easy enough even by flashlight. Until he goes to hook up the fuel line. The existing line has a 3/8" fitting, the new carb fitting is now 5/16", it's 10PM and everything is closed. Gary is tasked with picking up and installing a 5/16" line the next day. He is able to accomplish this without a hitch, and the car now runs fine.
Epilogue, Sunday June 9
Gary and Doug drive Gary's '57 Eighty-Eight Fiesta and the Ninety-Eight respectively to the Sulley Plantation Antique and Classic Car Show in Chantilly, VA (near Washington's Dulles Airport), where the Fiesta takes a Third in its class, bested by fellow OCA and chapter member Ralph Regalbuto's '56 Ninety-Eight Holiday sedan and an unknown car. Gary's Ninety-Eight is beaten out by four antiseptic GTOs shown by local Pontiac chapter members. But it ran great, we finally beat that Quadrajet!
Submitted by: Doug Kitchener