After months of searching, hundreds of dollars in parts, confrontations with lying mechanics (cause they thought I was just a stupid girl who couldn't rebuild a carburator, and many frustrated hours on the side of the road, I found my ACTUAL fuel delivery issue.
Turns out, my particular rig was made during a year that Ford made a deal with Carter, so it has a Carter spread bore manifold... Of which you can no longer buy a carb for... So, someone put a Holley square bore carb, some fancy Gaskets work, and a For Sale sign on it and sent it away.
The owner before me (and possibly the owner before him) had been trying to figure it out, but to no avail.
My (former) auto shop was too busy blaming the fuel issue on the carb they were SURE I had rebuilt wrong to figure out the real issue. ( Sadly, I believed them and bought a new Edlebrock carb before discovering the issue)
BUT, my shiny new Edlebrock manifold is here and now I just need to figure out why the old one won't lift off. Seems the distributor is blocking it, but it's not pulling up. All the bolts came out nicely (whew!), but it's not coming up.
Gonna tackle it again tonight, any suggestions are appreciated.

❤
Penelope

 

I have had good luck in the past pushing a flathead screwdriver into the front under the intake to interrupt the gasket or sealer. I recall using flathead to work into front corners under tip of intake to get into the corner to try and work it up. I've also used those small pry bars that are like a flathead with the tip bent to try to get under the intake. Tractor Supply sells a VERY nice set of prybars for about 17 or 18 bucks with 3 or 4 sizes and they are durable. Sometimes intakes can be a fight to get off. Would recommend when you reinstall, use silicone on front and rear rails and not the cork gasket that comes with a kit. Be sure sit intake down straight. If you need to, get some bolts same size as intake bolts and cut the heads off and cut a straight cut across the top (so you can use flathead screwdriver to back them out), or use allen head bolts (like you get from hardware sections of store) to keep your intake sitting down flat and then back those off and install your regular intake bolts. Install your intake first, alone, nice and straight, don't wiggle, then install your carb later, to keep weight down. You don't want to interrupt silicone on front and rear edge of block slipping intake around, use something you can remove to guide it straight down. The best I've used is called "the Right Stuff", it's very $, in a Cheese Whiz sort of can, but it is killer. removing intakes isn't something fun to do due to leaks AND you get water/coolant into oil requiring oil change, so, it is something you want to be patient on and get right the first time. I've also used regular Permatex black or red silicone for front and rear ledge. I have done both with distributor in place and removed, and it's not a big problem with an aluminum intake, much more aggravating installing a cast iron factory one due to weight and bending over and so forth.

 

by the way, you can get the intake past the distributor once you've broken loose the gaskets/silicone, but it is sorta tight. You want to be sure and poke scrap rags into your ports and get the metal surfaces extremely clean of all gasket material. Use a razor blade or something, and use carb cleaner or brake cleaner or alcohol (or lacquer thinner), something like that. You want the heads and front and rear ledge of block sparking clean before you attempt to install new gaskets and silicone products. Be sure you have your intake gaskets mounted in right direction. Clean all the crap that falls into the engine from scraping gasket and silicone.
Change oil, because you get coolant mix into oil when you remove intake, do that before cranking it. Ensure you start intake manifold bolt torque sequence as shown in a book and don't overtorque. If reusing stock bolts, be sure to wire brush them clean of they are rusty. I tend to use arp intake bolts on any engine I work on, but they are $. A hardware store grade 8 bolt is also nice.

 

If you get hung up, don't hesitate to ask further questions. I've done a lot of intakes, but it has been a few years, so I might be vague in some of what I'm typing. But, I've tried to be thorough.

 

I can't really help - I know nothing about 460s - but I'm very curious about the weird carb/manifold. I always thought "Spread Bore" = "Quadrajet" (I grew up with Chevys).

Is this what you have?
Flooded Junk To 4-Barreled Funk: A Carb Swap Story - Autoholics

 

carter manifold. car engines had spreadbore manifolds, truck engines had straight ones.


why didn't you just get a spreadbore carb for your intake> there will be a casting # on it.


well I guess if you are already pulling it.........


might want to check the #s on your engine and find out what you actually have in there. might be an old 429, never know

 

Personally most every time I've had difficulty lifting an intake off a block it was because one sneaky bolt was still in place.

 

didn't realize when I posted this was 460, damn that is going to be one heavy manifold to get off. I wouldn't try to slip that around a distributor. I would pull the distributor to fight an 80 pound cast iron manifold. And I'd ensure I had at least one other person there to help, but I'd prefer lifting it by the carb studs with an engine hoist to get that beast off. But, I'm over 50 with lower back issues and constant pain.

 

Most Race Shops sell adapters for square to spread bore or vice versa. Has it ever back fired through the Carb? if it has it can blow out the Power Valve in a Holley, and Ethanol Gas will eat up the Accelerator Pump/s and Float Needles..........

 

So I have just a touch of OCD and kept digging on this.

Check this out:
Comparing the Motorcraft 4350 Spreadbore Carburetor

The normal spread to square adapters don't work.

But looks like TransDapt makes one that will.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/trd-2199

Interesting stuff.

 

Oh yeah... that thing was HEA-VY! Yikes!!! Only 80lbs? Are you sure?
Absolutely had to take the distributor off... no way to get it up over the bolts from the engine.
But now, I have a shiny purple performance manifold (yep, you read that right) with aqua blue header covers (and several other paintable parts) and a shiny purple Edlebrock Performance Air Filter. She is stylin'!!!

 

Well thank you Mr. OCD. However, I've already installed the new manifold. Not sure that adapter would have worked, but its too late now. The manifold is already painted purple and gooped in.

And now it's about 50lbs (or more) lighter on the front end without that old full metal jacket under the hood.

 

Oh yeah, she backfired quite a few times and yes, in the carburetor. However, I have a new Edlebrock 1411 in there now.