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Pertinent information: B18, automatic. Car starts reliably when it is 10 deg. outside and when it is 90 deg. Idles pretty good. Gets around town well. No obviously worn throttle shafts. No gasoline-like smells or puddles when running or parked. I've adjusted the carbs a few times per the many sets of instructions floating around out there, and have the timing at about ~15 deg at idle.
Symptoms: Bad, bad fuel economy. Can't put a number on it since the odometer/speedometer is disconnected. If I had to ball-park it, I'd say around 100 miles to a fill-up (which usually takes 10ish gallons). It's an automatic, but this seems like large-V8 consumption. With air filters off and car idling, if I actuate the carb linkage by hand I can see a decent "spray" of fuel droplets coming from the jet/needle interface. It's visible at idle as well, but much more difficult to see under the piston. Other than the poor gas consumption, I'm not terribly displeased with how the car drives.
With nothing better to do today, I decided to check the floats and valves. This being the first time I've ever looked at one, the floats seem like they are very "high" when I invert the caps. The Haynes manual and other older posts suggests using a 1/8" rod (or slightly under) to check the float level when sighting across the level of the bowl lid. But, the arms on my floats have a "jog" in them, unlike the diagram in the haynes where they are flat. This creates a much larger gap than would be there with a flat arm (about enough for a Bic pen body to fit in there. The needle is NOT all the way depressed in this position, but it is depressed enough that I can't blow air through. The needle and valve seems to move freely when I move the float.
I figure even if this does not solve my problem, or is not even related to it, it's a good exercise to go through so I appreciate any input or suggestions on how to proceed.
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