I need to replace the carb on my 86 Chevy Silverado C10, 305, with 700R automatic tranny. I was looking at the Uremco remanufactured carb. Does anyone have any experience with Uremco?
Never heard of them. Is your current carb the original one? If so it’s pretty easy to disassemble and overhaul if you’re mechanically inclined.
What kind of problem are you having?
UREMCO is United Remanufacturing Company.
They remanufacture all kinds of vehicle components.
The only thing I’d be concerned with is, does the remanufactured carb have components that are compatible with today’s ethanol gas?
Tester
I’ve used their stuff in the past (a LONG time ago) with no problems but did have an issue with one of their Quadrajets that I installed on a customer pickup.
When cranking the engine the carb was puking up gasoline all over the top of the engine. Figuring the float was stuck from the carb possibly sitting a while I tried some tapping to no avail.
Finally assuming there was an issue with the float needle/seat I removed the top of the carburetor and found that someone had forgotten to even install a float…
As with any assembly line product there’s going to be hiccups now and then. They used to have a large facility in OK City which I believe has been defunct for quite some time.
They say they are compatible with ethanol. The gas does not stay in the bowl and the acclerator pump is leaking. Truck is stumbling pretty bad. The Edelbrock needs adapters. Is it better?
Was it a Q Jet? IMO a Q jet is a fine carburater,they can actually be tuned rather fine,one trouble with a rebuilt-is that sometimes they dont go far enough and ,do they make a direct substitute for a Q-JET? Personally and I know this is kinda going off on a tangent-Can you put a throttle body injection unit on it? it seemed about the time GM did this,fuel mileage and power jumped,just a thought.
A TBI unit can be put on. But then you need to add the computer for TBI and an O2 sensor.
Tester
More work than it’s worth, I think (for TBI). I’d try doing a rebuild if you have the (few) tools and a good space to do it. Otherwise, a rebuilt one would be my next choice.
I’ve got a car with an Edelbrock and have had them in the past. The Edelbrocks are good carburetors. They may not necessarily be better as to performance but they’re miles simpler to service if needed.
Tuning them with a different set of mixture needles is a 5 minute job. If the jets are changed it may turn into 10-15 minutes. Odds are it’s good right out of the box.
The reason for the float bowl emptying could be a leaking jet well plug A lot of times the jet well is forgotten when overhauled.
Some carb kits do not even have a rubber seal for it and make no mention of epoxying the thing in place.
How much is the reman. Uremco carb?
Reman $284 at Summit. Edelbrock $299. Edelbrock needs adapters, so price goes up.
If you feel up to it, rebuilding is certainly an option. If you’re mechanically inclined at all I’d recommend trying it before getting a remanned unit. You might just enjoy it and even learn some new adjectives. Best case, you’ll have fun and have something you can feel some pride in. Worst case, you’ll discover your limitations and have to resort to a remanned carb anyway. The only thing you have to lose is the cost of a rebuild kit,
If you decide to go the Edelbrock route don’t forget those carburetors are offered with both manual and electric chokes. The latter is preferable IMO rather than putz around with a manual choke cable.
Just a trivia note but the Merkur XR4 I have here with a 5.0 has 2 of the Edelbrock 600s on it with progressive linkage and even surprising to me is that the car will get 21 MPG at a 65 MPH cruise on 3:38 gears.
The stock Quadrajets (set up right, ignition timing right, advance working correctly,etc) will also attain that kind of mileage depending on axle ratio, driving habits, etc.
The primary bores on the QJs are small and that aids in the low speed, around town driving.
Carbs ,with these newer types of gas,I just dont trust carbs anymore,even back in the day,with real gas,they werent such a good deal,I always remember the difference in performance on an early 80’s 305 vs a late 80’s 305(to be honest I dont remember if the late 80’s 305 was a TBI or not)I remember how well my 86.5 Nissan ran with a TBI unit.A;ways seemed like the TBI unit was vvery trouble free.
I remember wasting money on a 4bbl Holley on a 73 Ford 302,vs a 2bbl,I would have been better off giving the money to a reputable charity,not to say the carb wasnt any good,but I never had much luck with a particular brand of carbs,cold weather performance was horrible.with the floats sinking etc,make mine fuel injection anytime now and good luck on your endeavour,like the other Guys said,try to rebuild your carb,you might ace it,if the bores where the throttle shafts ride arent wore completely out,you will learn a great deal.
I too never liked carburetors but that’s what we had back in the day. I did own a 57 Chevy with fuel injection but it was fuel injection in name only. If you decide to rebuild the carb…make sure you install a new float. It’s the one thing that’s often overlooked but can cause a myriad of problems with a carburetor.
The Edelbrock is a Carter AFB. They bought the old tooling and designs. It is a good carb. Good part throttle mixture control (no a sweet spot of Holley carbs!). I agree with @kmccune, though, the Q-jet is a good carb. They aren’t that hard to rebuild. You can probably find a video on YouTube
Here’s one;
Years ago Holley use to make direct bolt replacement carbs for many vehicles. Not sure if they still do.
I replaced a carb on a Chrysler LeBarron with a Eldebrock carb many years ago. It was considered one of their harder installations. But it really wasn’t that bad.
“it seemed about the time GM did this,fuel mileage and power jumped,just a thought.”
I’ll grant you power…but I’ve owned a TBI '88 Dakota, a batch-fire '94 F150…and (if you look on the fueleconomy.gov site), ALL of them took MPG hits when they switched away from carbs. (Also looked this tidbit up on a 80s Tercel; same story.)
Basically, the “last gen” carbs actually gave good MPG (when they were working properly). “First gen” EFI (esp TBI) was a step backwards, mileage-wise. Don’t take my word for it–look it up yourself!
(Sometimes I wonder if early EFI had larger nozzles as a means of coping with low-detergent gas, and THAT led to poor atomization/poor FE. Wonder if I couldn’t get a MPG bump by swapping in some newer injectors??)
Back in the late 80s Subaru went away from EEC carburetion to EFI.
An EEC carbed car with a 1.8 would tick off 40 MPG on the highway.
The near identical car with the OHCs and EFI 1.8 would struggle to get 27 or 28.
I fail to see how that was an improvement as it meant more gas from Point A to Point B in essentially the same car with the newer ones being more aero in design.
I know the average mileage on the silverados went from around 10 to about 13 around here on the 4 wds drives,the old trucks with full time 4 wd iould sometimes run around 8mpg,the boss had a nice mid nineties 1500 with TBI,I set the cruise on a good run and got 19 mpg,the last carburetted 4 bbl, truck they had(2wd 4dr-didnt do good at all and had a funky smelling exhaust(smelled like MY 20 HP Briggs & Stratton) so like carbs if you will,make mine fuel injection