So I have been searching for months now and really not making any progress. A couple years ago my grandfather scored part of a early corvette dual quad set up. He was going to use it for his project at the time, but sold the project and has decided if he does another rod its going to have 6x2's, so he offered the setup to me to run on my 33 pickup. The problem with the setup is that its missing the primary carb. Story goes that guy pulled these off a 57 Chevy and some years later a buddy needed a 57 carb so he sold the primary of the dual quads. So I have the harder to find secondary and the progressive linkage pieces. I had picked up a wcfb at swap meet, but not being well versed with these early carbs, it was off a Desoto. I have yet to find a dual quad primary pop up for sale, I will see secondary carbs occasionally So my main questions: 1) Would a 57 Chevy or other year WCFB off a single 4 barrel set up work as long its off a Chevy? Is there much work needed to get that to work? 2) I did come across a matched pair of carbs off a 56 Caddy, what would be an issue with those? They visibly look the same minus the cross over tubes on top. I would really like to run this setup, but if the costs to just get 1 carb are too much, Ill probably go with tri power.
The WCFB's used on the 283 were the very smallest of all of the WCFB's. If one is going to run dual WCFB's on the street, best to stay with the original versions. ALL other WCFB carbs are larger internally. When looking for only one of the carburetors, the front carb is significantly more common, and less expensive than the rear carb. Figure the front carb is maybe 30 percent of the value, and the rear carb is maybe 70 percent of the value. WHY? The front carb does not have all of the circuits normally found in a carburetor. 50 years ago, when I was scouring salvage yards for factory multiple carb setups, I found many 2x4, not just Chevrolet, missing the rear (primary) carb, and many tripowers missing the center (primary) carb. The salvage yard would sell the primary carb for other applications, but could not sell the secondary carbs. Jon.
(Short anecdote... When I left for college in 1967 there was a complete manifold, rat-trap WCFB carburetors, fuel lines and linkage sitting under a bench at Bennett Shaw's garage off the square in old downtown Rockwall TX. I can still see it sitting there gathering small town Texas dust. How many times I thought to myself I should'a bought that setup. Found out later it came off the 1956 Chevrolet 150 265ci I bought in 1962 for $250 from Billy People's Used Cars lot located two blocks away. My first car.)
The Jalopy Journal
