Carb mishap, stalling, worth the trouble?

[dualbunny]

I have an '81 Eagle 4x4 wagon that was running alright (I can't say that it's ever run really *well* in the time I've owned it) until I pulled off the interstate onto an exit, at which point it stalled.  And from that point on, I've been playing the brake/gas, shift from drive-into-neutral game to get it anywhere while I try to figure out what the problem is.

The catalytic converter was shot, so I had that looked at first.  It was in fact plugged, so they replaced it, but no joy, still stalling.
Replaced the oil, air, and gas filters, along with the fuel pump and the coil. Still stalling.
I've rebuilt the carb before, but I figured something could be plugged so I pulled that off and picked up a rebuild kit.  In going over that, I managed to jolt it wrong with the top-most small cover off, popped out the rods and broke off one of the tabs on the little green plastic rod lifter.

Anyone have any luck repairing something like that?  If I glue it on, it seems likely to just snap off again.  Should I try to find a scrapyard replacement piece? Pretty slim AMC pickings around here in that respect?  In looking over posts, I admit I'm tempted by the promise of an easier to sort through carb/vacuum system like the MC swap, but since I don't even know if it's the carb right now, I'm a little hesitant to spend that money and still have hunting to do. 

Any opinions? I love this car when it cooperates, but it loves to test my patience.   Thanks for any thoughts...

--Christina

[AMC of Houston]

I probably have a spare plastic piece I could mail you - I have lots of parts carbs laying around.   Did you drill out the bottom of the idle bleed tubes per the AMC Service Bulletin when you did the carb last??   That cures lots of stalling issues.

[dualbunny]

I would certainly take you up on that, since it would at least let me test it again.  And no, I haven't drilled them out yet. I didn't have the right size drill bit on hand, and I was hoping to see if cleaning it helped, in which case I'd probably give that a whirl to prevent it from happening again.  I didn't see any sediment or clogging to speak of.  I thought I saw some gas seepage around the large middle gasket, so that was my best guess so far if the carb cleanup ended up fixing anything.

[AMC of Houston]

I'll go see if I can find one, and let you know later today.

[AMC of Houston]

I found one.   PM me your snail-mail address, and I'll get it in the mail.

[carnuck]

I used a torch tip cleaner to ream out my Eagle's idle tubes. Aside from that, a sewing needle or safety pin works. Too bad you didn't ask before tackling this. I check things out first. Make sure the intake bolts are all tight. Grab the carb body and see if you can twist it (if you can, it comes off to tighten the through body bolts) No vacuum leaks, including a bad brake booster.
   Then I take the air cleaner lid off. Cross #1 and #6 plug wires at the cap and start the car (it will backfire). A couple quick revs (and pops) to clean it out then put them back straight. 9 out of 10 times the idle tubes get cleaned out.