Car idles like a diesel (carbed)

[crazypete]

The problem started two weeks ago. I was driving around and it just lost power in the middle of a turn and it was kicking/intermittent power/cutting in-out for a few minutes beforehand. I sprayed some carb cleaner and it came back to life. I dropped in 4 bottles of fuel system cleaner and thought that was the end of that. This past saturday, it simply didnt want to start. I carb cleanered it again and then it kicked in. I drove cross state no problem. Stopped, started, no problem. That morning, the car started up but got worse and worse through the day. The air/fluel mixture guage bottoms out whenever I go down a hill/nosedown, clears out shortly after when I go level (but still feels like power is fluctuating when I have the pedal in just a bit off idle). Going uphill fixes all problems. If I punch it, the problem clears out. The floats are set right on since that was my first thought.

Ok, I get home and notice the temp needle is in the red! I stop and I hear EEEEEEEE as steam is pressing through a gasket up near the thermostat elbow. I popped the radiator open so my seals wouldnt all blow. I filled the oil-free radiator back up, changed the oil (which was clean oily oil with no coolant). I CRAZY carb cleanered it. I put carb cleaner into the fuel bowl too (I found this always helps). I sprayed around the carb base but no rpm spikes.

I start it and it sounds like a diesel. Sounds like it's running on not 7 but 6 cylinders, very lopey and stalls after a few minutes. The mixture was full rich then it fell to halfway soon thereafter. I hear doof doof from the exhaust and an awful lot of water coming from the tailpipes but no white smoke or smell. It revs fine (with a little hesitation) and the power is all there (I did a burnout) but then it starts "dieseling" again when I go back to idle. Arg!

Any ideas? Time for a new carb or blown coolant->cyclinder gasket? It would seem like the idle circuit is clogged somehow but carb cleaner in the fuel bowl should unclog it right? I must have done that 5-6 times by now.