Turns out my little bend in the vacuum break arm didn’t do the trick in the end. I actually neglected to adjust the choke break when I put the carb together – funny I should have missed that.
The instructions in the shop manual require a special tool to set the choke brake. This is something I don’t have and so may have put off setting it up till later….
Fortunately I have an old Peterson’s manual from the era and also the old carb from the ’82 Caprice. The manual instructions didn’t require any special tools and a careful inspection of the setup on the old carb gave me an idea of what to do.
The only fuzzy area was the setting of the choke flap with vacuum put on the choke break. I don’t have the carb number so I couldn’t get the exact size for the opening at the front of the choke flap. Looking at the old carb and the numbers in the manual for all the Quadrajets I settled on 1/8″
With the choke brake adjusted the actuating arm (now back to straight) clears all the linkage.
With the engine started the vacuum break opens the choke properly.
A few minutes later the electric choke allows the choke plate to move to the fully open position.
Next: Even though there may still be a few bugs to work out it’s time to start the work on the original 350.