Vintage Thunderbird Club International

Installed an new elderbrock carb and it runs fine --EXCEPT--the linkage from the gas pedal arm in the engine compartment is not adjustable enough to open the carb completely.---if you adjust for full open then it will not close the butterfly's completely to idle and also the opposite. It seems they make an adapter for fords but not for these earlier models . Also-when adjusting to get the longest throw--the arm inside the car will not stay under the pedal when you press it to the floor. What am I missing???

Well, its sad to say but FORD never made the car for you to change it from stock, for which you have done. Since you modified the car, then you will have to modify the linkage to suit.
This will mean, either making the vertical arm "taller" or shorter to allow a "longer" or shorter travel swing to give a greater "push/pull" to allow a "further swing" on the carb throttle butterfly shaft rotation.
I realize it sounds like a lot of BS, but in simple terms, you will have to make the linkage do what it was never designed to do without a FOMOCO carb.

I had the same carb (hated it) and got the linkage working fine.
When the little white wheel thingy slips over the top of the pedal, the linkage is too long.
If you shorten it and that causes you to not get full throttle then I would reconsider where you have it attached to the carbs linkage. It needs to be closer to the center of the linkage so more rod movement will equal more throttle movement.

If you cannot get the linkage to work, I would double check that the parts back at the firewall are installed correctly and that none are missing. Seems like when these engines, heads of manifold gets pulled, the complicated firewall linkage is often compromised.

If anyone near me want's one of these carbs or a 700 CFM model, your welcome to them. Neither one has more than a few thousand miles on it.

Scott

Hi emo666. Was this issue resolved?

When I bought my '64, it had a 600 cfm Holley and I noticed the vacuum secondaries weren't opening. To Scott's point, someone had connected the throttle linkage rod into the wrong hole of the carb linkage and so even with the accelerator pedal to the floor, I wasn't getting full opening of the carb.

There's a procedure in the shop manual for the '64 showing how to adjust the accelerator linkage including the clearances required. The required clearance for the distance from the top of the accelerator pedal to the floorboards is a little over 4". You can adjust that clearance by adjusting the linkage.

The pedal throw can also be affected if carpeting has bunched up under the pedal (or your favorite coffee mug ended up wedged down there).

But the fact that the little travel wheel under the pedal is popping out indicates to me that the linkage is wonky, perhaps loose at the pivot point mechanism where the linkage goes through the firewall.

Once the accelerator linkage is properly adjusted, then you can adjust the tranny kick down linkage so that works correctly too.

Doug

I agree with what is already written. Check that there isn't something stuck under the pedal impeding it from going all the way down.

I had an Edelbrock carb on my last '66 and I got full travel out of it. I think there was a "Ford kit" that I installed on the carb which extended the butterfly lever a little bit giving some more travel opening with less pedal movement. I don't have it anymore, so I can't say anything specific other than "it worked".

Here's what I did: disconnect the throttle linkage at the carb, rotate the carb butterfly lever to all the way open and make a register mark, then reconnect the throttle linkage and see if pressing the pedal all the way down gets the carb butterfly lever all the way to the register mark. Then go from there.

Also, I couldn't tell just from noise level whether the secondaries were opening. I don't have a fixed vacuum gauge, so I ran a long piece of vacuum line from the manifold to a portable gauge inside the cockpit. When the secondaries open, the manifold vacuum drops to zero so it's really obvious.