1967 Cadillac EldoradoGERALD´S CADILLACS - NEWS

1978 ACCELERATOR PUMP REPAIR

My low mileage 1978 Eldorado Biarritz ran super nice. It idled like a clockwork but it sometimes had one problem:
The car would have a slight hesitation for one or two seconds when driving away from standing still and idling. The hesitation was not present at any higher speeds - only when starting from standing still, no matter how hard I hit the pedal.
Once the car was rolling, it ran perfectly. 2 or 3 times the engine even stalled in the past.
That's why I suspected the accelerator pump.
Replacing it is not too difficult. You basically only need a rebuild kit and remove the carburetor from the car. Then you have to remove 8 screws to take the top off and remove 2 linkages. I'm not a carburetor expert at all, but luckily my friends ,who did the job before, helped me, but it really is not difficult at all. I found some great how-to video on YouTube on how the Quadrajets are taken apart and back together - They have some very informative videos on their youtube channel - here is one of them:

1978 Cadillac Carburetor QuadrajetThe Quadrajet after removal.78carbopen-IMG_8059
The Quadrajet with the top removed
accpump-IMG_8058bgThe accelerator pump on the right sidecarbmonday2guys
My friends Steve and Lucky helped a lot. Thanks my friends! We did all the work in Luckys fantastic garage and shop.
carbmondaysteve+gerald
friendsandcarbsWe had "Carburetor Monday" as everybody was working on their carburetors.

We replaced the pump rubber and put everything back together. The carburetor looked very clean inside with only minor deposits, so we left everything else as it was.
I can't wait to install it back into the car and hope the problem is fixed - did not do a full rebuild as it is still very clean and nice inside. Only installed new rubber on the pump and new top gaskets. Hopefully the problem is fixed now. I will update the page once the carb is back in the car.

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1967 ELDORADO CARBURETOR REPLACEMENT

I installed a rebuilt carburetor from www.carburetorcenter.com into my 1967 Eldorado today. It suffered from bad idle when fully warmed up at low RPM. It had a problem with the secondaries not closing properly and was worn out a bit. It's an easy install. The 1967 Eldorado uses a unique linkage for the transmission switch, which is a one year only item. Take good care of yours!
The Eldorado now purrs like a kitten again with its new Quadrajet. I now have two more carburetors to do - the 1966 has a stuck choke and the 1978 needs a new accelerator pump.... The video is also available on YouTube in 4K HDR quality...


I took a short video of the installation process.1967 Cadillac Eldorado Quadrajet
The rebuilt Quadrajet on the bench.
Original 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Quadrajet
The old original 1967 Eldorado Quadrajet - this is the non California version.

1967 Cadillac Eldorado Quadrajet

The rebuilt Quadrajet installed.

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MY 1967 ELDORADO BLEW A CARBURETOR GASKET (AGAIN)

Back in 2011 I had my carburetor rebuilt by a shop, which I used by the time, and before I did all the work by myself. When I got the car back from the shop, I suddenly heard a ticking noise, which came from the side of the carburetor and the car idled terribly. As I soon found out, the shop had the gasket and the metallic spacer installed in the wrong order and because of this, the gasket burned through, which caused a massive leak at the carburetor.
A new gasket was installed in the correct order then, and the car ran really good until recently, when the car suddenly had the exact same symptoms again…
I ordered new gaskets again and removed the carburetor from the car.
Click to READ MORE!

_MG_4867-editMake sure to install the gasket and the metal shim in the correct order!

_MG_4862-edit

READ MORE...
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A problem with the 67 Eldorados carburetor

I brought my 67 Eldorado home from the restoration shop yesterday only to find out that the AC compressor died and leaked the fresh refill it got. Everything is new except the compressor and of course it died at the first usage. The system was pressure tested at the shop and worked like a charm. When they let the car idle with the AC on, the compressor started to leak. They tried to fix it but had no success. So I will need a new compressor and a new charge.
The right headlight door actuator also suddenly no longer works correctly. All hoses are new and it worked perfectly until recently. I can now only make it close if I jiggle on the actuator. Is there any way to rebuild them? A source for new or rebuilt ones? I have heard that the ones from the 1969 Camaro is very similar and only needs some minor modifications to work on the Eldorado as well. So I went ahead and ordered one. But the worst thing was that the freshly rebuilt carburetor made strange ticking noises and sounded like a tractor while accelerating. It worked well though, but the sound was unbearable. Could it be a defective gasket? It was also idling quite badly. Acceleration was superb though, its much more powerful than before, but still something was wrong... The ignition also was completely rebuilt. So I played around with the ignition first, but the ticking sound did not go away, no matter in which direction I changed the timing... Almost sounded like an exhaust leak, but there seemed to be none... It was LOUD! Before I had the carb and ignition rebuilt, it was extremely quiet and idling smoothly but had misses while accelerating.
I got some very valuable tips from fellow Cadillac aficionados and the previous owner of this Eldorado even called me from the USA to give me some tips to solve this issue, and he was spot on with his diagnosis...

With a hose held to my ear and the other end to the carburetor, I was able to locate the source of the noise. It came from the carburetor below the choke assembly. So I took the freshly rebuilt Rochester Quadrajet out again, only to find out that the gasket and the metal shim were installed the wrong way around. This burned a hole into the brand new gasket where the exhaust gases from the heat crossover passage could escape and make this noise.
Of course I did not have a new gasket at hand, so I carefully removed the old one from my spare engine, which was in pretty good shape and installed it.
No more ticking - no more noises, no more bad idling.
The car now drives amazingly good and is silky smooth. It could not be any better.


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The shim was installed first and then the carb - thats wrong! The gasket has to go on the intake manifold first - then comes the metal shim.

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Here you can see the burnt gasket and the metal shim

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Putting everything back together again

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Test drive after the repair - perfect!

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