Sorting through this mess.

[eaglerado]

Hey everyone,

Today I am trying to wrap my head around the inner workings of my Eagle, and am in the process of working on it a bit.  As an intro, I know little to nothing about engines, and working on them causes me extreme anxiety.  So naturally I bought this Eagle (85 wagon 258 auto), and have been slowly chipping away at it for about 6 months.  I am a do-it-yourself-er, so I REALLY dont want to take this to any shop.  My current problem is with my carburetor.  I bought a full carb rebuild kit for my Carter carb, so when that comes in the mail i plan on doing that somehow.  I took off my air filter just to put my eyes on the carb, and noticed about 3 or 4 lines of some kind, that are just totally unhooked, and dangling there doing nothing.  Some just have a screw screwed into the end of them to plug it up.  They are the smallest lines on the front of the carb, but I just have no idea if they are vacuum lines, fuel lines, or what!  I literally pulled on one to see where it ran, and i just pulled the whole thing out. 
SO, me being me, I just don't even know where to begin.  i'm guessing I should wait to get that kit in the mail and just tackle that with my carb rebuild, but I'm just posting this to vent my frustration, and hopefully get an idea of what the heck they are, maybe a link to some understandable diagram or something.

Blerrrgh.

[eaglebeek]

eaglerado, it would help if you include a photo of your setup.  I also need to know if you're in an emissions-testing area and requiring the smog controls to remain intact.

In general terms, here's what you really need:
1) The fuel line is steel. It screws into the front of the carburetor. You need two wrenches to loosen it, one to hold the fitting on the carburetor and the other to loosen the fuel line. You want a COLD engine to disconnect this line.
2) There is one quarter-inch or so line on top of the carburetor. This line branches into two hoses at the carburetor. The other end goes to the vapor recovery canister on the left fender under the hood. The vapor recovery canister is about the size of a large can of coffee and has several hoses attached to it.
3) There is a small line on the right or passenger side of the carburetor. That goes to the distributor vacuum advance on the right side of the engine.
4.) There are some other smaller lines attached to nipples on the back side of the carburetor. What you do with those lines is dependent on if you need to keep the smog controls intact.

Carburetor kits often come with complete illustrated instructions. It's not hard but there are many screws and small pieces.

Knowledge relieves anxiety, and there's lots of knowledge on this site. Post up with your questions and you will get answers.

[IowaEagle]

Your carb may not be the problem.  Often times they are blamed because a previous owner did a hack job on the vacuum lines and your ECM may be trying to regulate a carb based on faulty inputs.

[1985amceagle]

Your carb may not be the problem.  Often times they are blamed because a previous owner did a hack job on the vacuum lines and your ECM may be trying to regulate a carb based on faulty inputs.

IE is right about the ECU messing with the carb. If you are in a non smog check area, you can unhook the strode motor so that the ECU cannot control the carb anymore. Most unhook the carb on a cold start right after turning the key on. The way the ECU controls the engine is by adjusting the air fuel ratio by either richening the mixture or leaning it out. My system is messed up from years of neglect, and when the ECU is hooked to the carb it can't decide where the engine should run at. In turn it is constantly messing with the fuel mixture changing how the engine idles

[AMC1]

If this is the first time you've rebuilt a carb. may I offer a little advice that will not be included in a rebuild kit. Once you have the carb on the bench look for all secrws with a spring. If the engine ran fairly decently you're going to want to keep the varoius settings for when you're finished and need to re-set them,  Fuel/air fast/slow idle etc. Look at where each screw is starting & screw it all the way in (lean in some cases) and while screwing in in count ther number of revolutions and partial revolutions as if you're looking at a clock. Later when you re-set them you may be surprised at how good the engine runs before making the final adjustments. In most cases they will come within one revolution of being proper & in some cases perfect.  It's no fun to start up an engine after rebuilding a carb & have it idling at 5K rpm & running poorly at that.

[Amc1320]

For a carb rebuild there are a couple of things I like to do that might help you

One, I get a large sheet of paper that covers my whole work bench, then each peice I remove I lay it on the paper and then write notes beside where I layed it, this helps me remember what it is, there are a lot of peices and my memory is not good enough without notes

Two, don't let anyone distract you or bother you and do the whoe thing at the same sitting, don't come back to it several days later

But, that being said in your case I would check all me vacuum hoses before I rebuilt my carb, I have found that to be the problem with poor running AMC's more often than not. Check each hose to make sure it is not broken or rotted and hooks to the proper place, make sure there is no port that is not hooked up to some thing. Do you have a TSM that shows where all the vacuum hoses all go?

Lastly speaking of vacuum, tighten all your intake manifold bolts, they get loose and create vacuum leaks, it is a common issue

Good luck, keep us posted!

[IowaEagle]

We have most, if not all, of the engine vacuum diagrams in the Den's Eaglepedia.