Carburetor rebuild is completed. It took about 11 hours and aside from a few instances where we had extra parts left over (for the NON-feedback model) there were no issues with the rebuild.
There WAS however problems found. The vacuum port for the PCV and canister purge was mostly plugged, the accelerator pump adjustment was incorrect, the choke pull-back actuator is leaking AND not adjusted correctly and to top it off, some beaner had the low and high idle screws installed in reverse. Once that was all set it was much happier.
Unfortunately the weekend fun ends there. With the vacuum, fuel and ignition systems now rebuilt it was safe to test the timing system and then reset the timing and THEN reset the idle speeds. There are two advance systems (distributor centrifugal and vacuum advance) and one retard system (computer operated). These were all tested separately with no issues found and then the timing was bumped down from the 22 degrees the previous owner set to 15 and as soon as we put in the low idle the missing stopped and the smell of gas left the tailpipe.
But it no longer revved or took a load without stalling or misfiring. IT seems that right when you are needing vacuum at the distributor vacuum advance, it falls off a cliff, so either there's a leak somewhere or worse......for some reason the timing is wrong.....somehow......It's been suggested the harmonic balancer has slipped.
Edited: Or it might just be a vacuum leak. The only thing between the distributor and the vacuum source is the Coolant Temperature Override switch (otherwise known as a Ported Vacuum switch. This dual-mode thingy disables the EGR when the engine is cold and runs the distributor off manifold vacuum for improved cold starting and driving. When the engine gets hot enough it activates the EGR and switches the vacuum advance to ported vacuum. While I don't know how entirely sealed it is supposed to be, something tells me if I plug all the ports and pull a vacuum on either the ported or manifold port I shouldn't lose my vacuum relatively quickly, else that's a vacuum that isn't reaching the distributor when the engine calls for it. I'll have to order a new one. Again, the CJ series used the same part so they are relatively inexpensive.
