So I have purchased a ’67 GT that has sat for thirteen years. This particular car has its original engine that was rebuilt in 1988, and currently has 116,000 miles on it. Overall not a bad looking Cat, but I have decided to first get it running again.
Current condition:
Original Holley 4150 was included, but some other carb currently installed.
Gas tank smells like turpentine (natch) but all the gas appears to have evaporated.
Radiator condition unknown, but no visible fluid in it.
No brakes, the pedal goes to the floor. It does have PDB on the front!
There were some goodies in the trunk, including the original radio.
First order of business was removing the rear trunk carpet and padding. It was pretty tough pulling it out as It appeared to have the original glue.
There is some rust damage under the padding, but overall not too extreme, at least compared to some I have seen.
The carpet in the trunk was done by a previous owner. Looks like some one loved this car a bunch to do all of that. If you have not been there already there are a couple of threads about how to bring one back to life that are very helpful.
Steven, the car came with a/c, PDB, PS, and of course the 390 4 BBL. I haven’t done anything lately on the car as I injured my knee and can’t get around just yet. But I haven’t been just twiddling my thumbs. I did some research on getting a rebuild kit for the original 4150 600 cfm carburetor. Jegs gave the Holley rebuild kit as 3-398 but said it is NLA. They referred me to atlanticspeed.com. I filled out their online form and they said they had rebuild kit #378 for $55 plus $8 s+h. So today I ordered the kit and I will probably document the rebuild of the carburetor here. I was torn between sending it out for a rebuild, but for the price I could get a brand new 650 cfm Holley 4160, P/N 0-80783C which was suggested on the Holley website and available for $360.95 +$9.95 s+h from Atlanticspeed.com.
Well I purchased a gallon of carb cleaner/soaking solution at Wal-Mart today for about $20, so I will have almost a hundred bucks into the carb rebuild by the time I am done. Until I get the engine running and can assess its condition I don’t want to spend a bunch of money. Anybody know if someone already documented a step by step rebuild of the Holley 4150 out here or some place else? I found a partial rebuild on a Mustang site but the search on this site didn’t turn anything up.
…and my own start of a procedure. I got the disassembly and tear-down written up, but once the nice weather hit I got distracted with driving the car and didn’t get around to finishing my procedure (D’oh!)
Do your self a favor. Go get a pair of the holly blue bowl gaskets, and metering block gaskets. They may also have the round plastic washers that go under the bowl attaching screws. They will make it easy for you to remove and replace the bowls when you need to. Be certain to properly center the gasket under the power valve.
xr7g428, are you thinking I will need to re-jet the carb and need the re-usable Buna rubber gaskets? I took a look on Jeg’s site and they offer Holley P/N 510-108-83-2 (float bowl) and 510-108-89-2 (metering block) for $11.99/ea. They also have Moroso PN 710-65224 and 710-65222 also Buna rubber for $8.99/ea. Other than being black I can’t tell any difference from the Holley versions. Anyone have any experience with the Moroso gaskets? I’m not sure that paying an additional six bucks to have blue gaskets is worth the cost.
I didn’t see any plastic or nylon float bowl washers listed at Jegs or Summit. Are these to keep from scoring the float bowl housing?
My experience is that modern gas tends to produce a chalky deposit in old Holley fuel bowls over time. Worse if you don’t drive the car much. It gets into the jets and the air bleeds. You might have to rejet, but that is really just an altitude and compression issue.
The white I’m guessing is aluminum oxide caused by moisture getting into the ethanol.
The washers Bill is referring to are what seal the bowl screws to the bowl. On the bowl and metering block gaskets, you don’t need the Buna-N ones, just the blue ones. They (and the screw washers) are non-stick. Some people (myself included) like to use cherry chapstick on the gaskets as an extra measure against sticking.
Maybe the best solution for the white chalky residue in the float chambers would be to coat the interior of the float chambers with one of the gas-proof gas tank coatings. Most of my experience with carburetors is with motorcycles, and I have seen plenty of that white crud in bike carbs that have sat for years. It is tough to remove and the gas eats away at the cast metal, leaving it pitted.
I have a gas tank coating kit for a motorcycle so I will probably try coating the interior of my 4150’s float chambers to prevent the reaction from today’s ethanol blends. Thank goodness whoever took the carb off drained all the old gas out and the interior of the carb looks good. Too bad the PO didn’t take better care when storing the carb, as it has some rust on the outside and the secondary butterflies have some rust on them and are sticking. It also wasn’t fun removing all the fiberglass insulation that the carb was coated with.
'69Vert, you say that Buna-N gaskets aren’t required, just the blue ones, but the blue Holley gaskets are made out of Buna rubber also.
The linkage has a lot of rust as the PO just tossed this carburetor in a box with fiberglass insulation. Although it was in a garage, there was no door on the front of the building and the metal suffered from the damp Coos Bay winters. I will see what I can do to clean this up with a brass wire brush on my drill.
The throttle body has some rust, and the secondary shaft was sticking, so I decided to remove the throttle plates and pull the shafts out.
Here’s a useful tool for scraping old gaskets, courtesy of our FLAPs.
Next step will be to clean everything and deal with the rust.
While dismantling the carburetor, I noticed there was a lot of rust in the “fuel inlet fitting.” I didn’t think much about it and just measured the OD where it threaded into the primary fuel bowl at 7/8" and the female threads on the pump side as 7/16". The pump side of the fitting requires a metal flared line as there is a raised rounded nipple with a hole through it for the gas to flow. So I sent the measurements and my carb spec to Daytona Parts, where I had purchased the carb rebuild kit. I received a reply to call as they had the part in stock. So I called and spoke to a gentleman who has rebuilt carbs for the past 20 years, including plenty of Holley 4150’s. I told him that I wanted to rebuild the carb back to ‘stock’ condition. He said that to do that, I needed an inlet fitting that had a built in fuel filter, and that would have a nipple where a short rubber hose would be clamped on.
Well, I was a bit confused as my 1967 Service Manual showed the same fuel inlet fitting that came on the carburetor I am rebuilding…
The guy at Daytona Parts said he’d sell me whatever I wanted, but I am still confused as to why the carb and book didn’t match what he was saying came on the car. I ended up calling West Coast Cougar Classics and after speaking with their parts person, ordered the inlet with the built in fuel filter and short rubber hose. I need to take the air cleaner off and see what is going on under the hood of the car. The PO said he’d put some other carb on just to seal the intake up, so no telling what is going on with the fuel lines.
Is the rust just a redish residue / small bits? If so, you are probably seeing rust residue coming from the old fuel lines and / or crusties in the gas tank. Pretty typical of our poor old cars, and most folks will tell you to replace both the lines and tank so that you don’t have to worry about clogged filters or carb in the future.
Mike, unfortunately the rust is the result of ten plus years exposure to moisture, so the fitting is shot. I know I will have to at the very least clean the tank and lines. I haven’t decided whether to coat the tank or get a new one. Eastwood sells a sealing kit for tanks that runs about $50, vs over $100 for a new tank. I also need to decide whether to put in new lines or just flush the old ones out good.
I had some time yesterday so I sandblasted the rusty linkage and wouldn’t you know it, my compressor motor locked up. So I ended up using my drill with a wire brush to remove rust from the rest of the linkage, and some rusty screw heads.
Before
After
I was pleased with the way the parts cleaned up. I am now waiting for the Eastwood bronze carburetor paint to arrive so I can freshen up the main body and float bowls. In the meantime I have some gasket material to remove and have been soaking parts in the carb cleaner and blowing through the passages with compressed air.
So I ended up using my drill with a wire brush to remove rust from the rest of the linkage, and some rusty screw heads.
