an american carb does the job....
 

Hello All-

Thanks for your help and suggestions a while back...

I putzed around with the Solex carb until I began to tear my hair out and finally decided to replace it with a modified Holley from Jam Engineering in Monterey, CA. The Solex was hopeless. The way the three parts of the Solex are bolted together all the way through to the engine was a recipe for warping. With the hot&cold Montana weather (where she was driven for 29 years) plus the normal heating/cooling of the engine, the screws were bound to loosen/tighten differently even without any over tightening by someone working on her... The Holley is bolted to the engine with a base plate, the carb is bolted together to itself with a different set of screws. The Holley works perfectly(!), uses the stock air filter, *and* is street legal re emissions in California. MPG is the same, 22+ on the freeway, 19 in town. The secondary barrels don't get stuck the way they did on the Solex, so I have much better and reliable acceleration (when merging, for example). I had the same 'dance' to get the engine started when cold (turn the key, count slowly to 10, two pumps of gas, wha-la) with the Holley until I replaced a 10+ year old battery: now The Soup is running better than she has in a couple of decades...

I can whole-heartedly recommend the Holley replacement of the Solex 4A1.
Thanks again for all of your feedback early on.

CJ