Today I worked on restoring some of the parts for the Carburetor. I started with the float bowls and am using a couple Eastwood products for the first time.
Accelerator pump and metering blocks need an exterior sprucing up.
Metal line that connects the primary and secondary float bowls after hitting it with the wire brush on the drill to remove the rust and dull metal.
I took plenty of pictures to aid re-assembly. Here is a portion of the choke housing.
The newly repainted float housing. Not exactly as nice as having it re-anodized, but loads better than before. I did have to sand some areas where the aluminum was corroded. The Eastwood Carb Renew II gives the part more of a sand-cast appearance and isn’t smooth like the original finish. It took me two coats before I was satisfied with the finish, but if I had a really nice exterior on the carb to begin with I would have just dusted the outside of the carb with the paint and it would look much more like the OEM finish.
If only the PO had sprayed WD-40 on the carb and stuck it in a plastic bag, I wouldn’t have to be removing all this rust!
Hopefully more rust removal and painting tomorrow, then I can concentrate on re-assembly.
I made more progress on the carburetor today. I cleaned and painted the second float bowl and metering block, then tackled the main carb body that had been soaking for a couple days. There was so much rust on the choke plate and associated linkage I decided to disassemble the parts so I could clean them up.
Before I removed the choke linkage and plate, I took note how the gasket between the throttle plates and main housing was associated. It is critical to make sure any new gasket has the same openings for the small orifices.
The brass screws holding the choke plate were swaged and the process compressed the screw head. It took a very thin screwdriver to fit in the screw slot. If I hadn’t been able to get the screwdriver in the slot I would have taken out my dremel tool with a thin cutting disc and opened up the slot slightly.
To remove the choke linkage it is necessary to slide the linkage up from the bottom and do some twisting to slide it loose - it won’t drop down and come apart. There is a nylon guide that is held somewhat captive, but has room to move slightly to prevent binding. This piece mounts on the bottom side of the carb housing as shown here. Be aware that the nylon guide has a horn shape on the bottom side.
I kept spraying the main carb body with a good quality carb cleaner and blasting all the orifices with compressed air. There are four very small passages that come from the metering block into the main air barrels, it is critical to make sure these are able to pass fuel. After about five times spraying with cleaner followed by air, I was satisfied that the passageways were clear and I verified this by feeling compressed air come out of all the openings. I then used the pre-paint prep for a final cleaning and dusted the carburetor body with the Eastwood carb paint. Here are a couple pictures of how it turned out.
I only have a few more pieces to clean and paint, then it will be time for re-assembly using the carb rebuild kit. I probably would have been able to finish cleaning and painting, but wouldn’t you know; I dropped a small nut from the choke linkage while cleaning rust and it hit my shoe and then disappeared! My garage has a lot of stuff in it and I spent about an hour searching for the lost nut. I finally found it but had a lot of time to reflect on Murphy’s Law.
I cleaned up the aluminum throttle body housing and did a little polishing using Mother’s Billet Metal Polish. This stuff works wonders on oxidized aluminum, and is much better than the Mother’s Aluminum Polish. I have brought back to life aluminum wheels that were so badly oxidized it was difficult to believe they would ever look good again. But the Billet polish and an electric drill with some buffing pads did the trick.
Before
After
At this point I was able to start re-assembling the carburetor. I took all the parts from the rebuild kit and replaced all the used part sand gaskets with the new ones on my table where I had each sub-assembly and their associated parts laid out. I had all my dis-assembly pictures on my laptop as reference as I put the carb back together. It sure made for an easier time and I was glad I took so many pictures of each part I had taken off, and also at a few different angles.
Looks fantastic. Were you careful to center the gasket on the power valve? You may also want to use the see through plugs to set the float bowl levels when the time comes. You can avoid getting gas on the outside of the carb that way.
Hi Guys, thanks for the compliments. I probably need to source a few components that were rusty to make that carb look ‘new’ along with having the exterior of the carburetor anodized instead of painted. Still, it looks a ton better than it did and with the rebuild kit I am hoping it performs like new. Right now that is my goal, just to get the car running and performing pretty much like it did when new.
XR7428G - I will double check the gasket under the power valve. Now that I am familiar with the insides of the carburetor (and with the non-stick gaskets) I can get in and out pretty fast! What happens if that gasket is off-set - does it leak gas and cause the engine to run too rich? Thx
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