First of all, I'm not qualified to write a manual for rebuilding carbs. This is simply a heads up to maybe help the first timer. I learned the hard way. Since Im rebuilding these carbs I thought Id take some pictures for the guys that think there is some kind of voodoo involved. Im no pro so if I do something differently than you, feel free to tell me Im all wet after I get it finished. Maybe I can learn something too. Ive always been able to get them to work in the past. I hope my luck continues. These are Stromberg WW carbs. that came on middle 50s Studebaker V8s. The first thing I did was to buy a 1956 Stude truck manual ($20) that tells a dummy like me how to rebuild the carbs. I could lie and say I figured it out on my own but the best thing that you can learn from this so called tech post is to buy a shop manual for whatever old car you are messing with. These are pretty rough carbs. I wouldnt recommend trying to rebuild one in this shape for your first attempt. Most of the time you just want to clean, re-gasket and re-adjust a working carb. If you dont have any pictures of the ***embled carb, take some. Does the short leg of that rod go down or up? check your pictures or the exploded views in your shop manual. Itll probably be a day or two before you start ***embling it again. Take your time taking things apart. ***ume you are going to damage pieces before you do and take the necessary precautions to prevent the damage. ***ume that screw is frozen before you ruin the slot. Get the right size screwdriver. Fill the whole slot with the screwdriver. Study the exploded view of your carb to find out where those damn check valve balls are. Theyll probably be in the accelerator pump circuit somewhere. Look for them before they fall on the floor so that you know where they came from. Some may have retainer springs to keep them in place. Others will just fall out of their holes. Did the old one come out or is it still stuck in the bottom? These slotted jet covers are always a ***** to get out. Get that big screwdriver out that you use as a pry bar, the square shank variety. With this setup you can really lean on it to keep it from riding up out of the slot while a small crescent wrench or end wrench gives you enough leverage to break it loose without damaging the slot. If it starts to ride up you arent putting enough pressure on it. Stop! Lean on that sum*****! I like to leave the old gasket on jets or richening valves so that I can match them up with all those options in the carb kit. Luckily the jets use the same Stromberg jet wrench as the 97 carbs. I just happen to have one in stock. If you are doing a 97, get the jet wrench. I dont know of any way to get the jets out without that wrench. Other carbs may use slotted jets. Get the right size square shank screwdriver as above. Even with the correct wrench I wrung the jet off even after it had broken loose. I used lots of liquid wrench and tightened and loosened the jet trying to get the lubricant into the threads but alas it snapped off at the tight spot. Oh well. You can see why you need to get the tubes out on the Stromberg type carbs. My manual calls them main discharge jets I think the 97 guys use a different term. I use an easy out bolt extractor of the right size to pull the tubes. Screw it in to get a good bite. Be careful some are br***. You can feel when it gets tight. I use a pair of dikes to pull the ***embly. Just grab the easy out as low as possible and rock the handles down. Just like pulling a nail the jaw tips will rise up pulling the easy out and tube with it. Take a new bite with the dikes and the tube is out. This works on 97s too. Some will say to tap the tubes with a small machine screw tap that only a machinist would have and use bolts, nuts and washers to pull the tube. That will work but Ill have both of them out before you can tap the first tube. They arent in there THAT tight. Its always worked for me. These were so corroded that I bead blasted the body and top with several parts still screwed in. You can try soaking them in carb cleaner over night if things look dire. Most of the time, you wont have that problem. After all the big pieces were bead blasted I soaked them in carb cleaner over night to clean all the p***ages that you just cant get to. Wash them up in water and blow them out with your blowgun. Wear your safety gl***es. You know its going to end up in your eyes. Its destiny plan for it. These things arent Swiss watches. The biggest concerns are dis***embly without damage and getting it re***embled correctly after cleaning. Refer to the manual or exploded view in the carb kit. Im pretty stupid at times so I plan for my stupidity. I try to leave those tiny round gaskets on their respective parts until its time to put them back on. The rebuild kits have more gaskets than you will use. At re***embly I pull the old gasket off, find its match, clean the small part and install it. It maybe over kill but it works for me. Ive been known to leave a carb in the cleaner for a week before getting back to it. Was that a copper gasket or paper? You could scotch tape the gasket to piece of cardboard and write down under it where it goes. Whatever works for you Nothing earth shattering here, but if it helps some young guy get the nerve to tear apart his carb and possibly help him to be a success at it then it will be a a success for me. If you can add any insights that you may have, I think this is the time and the place.
Good post. We could use a series of these "That really basic tech you'd like to know but are afraid to ask" posts.
Great write up! Its great if you can get your hands on some junk (free!) carbs just to tear them apart so you kinda get a feel for things. Some basic components are common across most carbs. Patience is a must like you've shown. Some tips I'll throw out there. Some carbs are more complicated than others. Concentrate on what you are doing. Do it when you are alone and your buddies aren't hanging around shooting the **** with you. Too easy to get distracted and forget what you were doing. Make sure when you start to dis***emble or re***emble, you can finish most of it without having to stop and come back to it later. I use a big cookie sheet when I take a carb apart. Parts can't roll away. Egg carton or muffin tin works well to keep parts separated. REALLY important when you need to keep similar looking jets from getting mixed up. Pay REALLY close attention when you turn the carb over after unscrewing the the top. Squat down and look at it upside down when you separate the halves holding the hole thing close to the cookie sheet. That way if there is a part like a check valve BB that falls out, you might see where it came from and it won't be as likely to bounce off the sheet. Ask me how I know... :-/ Try to find the jet size stamped on them when you remove them. Draw a diagram of your carb noting which jets were removed from where. In case the worst happens (you drop anything, parts get knocked off the bench, you get interrupted, etc) I use laqcuer thinner to clean my carbs. The varnish and such just dries up to a powder and its pretty easy to remove with compressed air and a brush.
Couple other things you may want to do if you are rebuilding any kind of carb, or small, intricate part... Some of these are obvious, so don't jump my **** with "you gotta be a dumb*** to not know that"... Some of us had to learn this stuff on our own. Get a couple of those magnetic bowls, some of the parts may not be want to stick to them, but you won't loose the ones that do. Get some disposable paper bowls too, they keep different ***emblies together. Also, go to a thrift store and get a couple 9x13 rectangular cake pans, when stuff falls out, the pan will catch about 50% of them... the rest will fly about 5 feet away and roll under something heavy... Which brings me to the next tip. Clean up and sweep the floor and the area around you are going to to rebuild the carbs. When a spring wizzes by your left eye, you aren't gonna want to be on your hands and knees looking through a pile of dirt/rust/greasy cat litter/rat droppings/dead insects/leaves/OTHER small pieces of previous carb rebuilds, maybe not even ones you did. Another hint, when you loose something on the floor, get a flashlight and lay it down on the floor in the general direction and get your eyes down as close as you can, with the flashlight down low, the little part should throw a little longer shadow that it normally would, making it easier to find. Oh and one more thing, some rebuild kits come with 2 or 3 different sets of gaskets, for different applications of a similar carb, try and match up the gaskets to the ones that are stuck to the carb you are building, and stash the others so you don't end up putting the wrong one in it and blocking off some vital vacuum/air/fuel p***age YOUR carb has. Frank and I were typing the same thing at the same time, I just took one minute longer.
if that isn't the voice of experience talking, I don't know what is.... I always remember to sweep the floor right after I drop the first small part.
If I'm having trouble with the screwdriver riding up out of the screw, often I put the carb body into an arbor press and use it to keep the screwdriver pressed firly into the screw's slot. That pressure from the press with positively keep it firmly into the screw.
Another thing: Unless you are quite familiar with the carb, mke a rough outline of the upper flange and the main body to base flange on a pice of cardboard with "Front" clearly marked, stab a little hole where each screw goes, and put the screws into the holes as you remove them. A remarkable number of carbs will have some combo like 5 short screws and one long, and there's always a good reason for the odd one. Figuring out where it has to go can be a drag iy you did not record things, and sometimes you find out that the long screw DOESN'T go into that hole because it crushes the float there... I like to use a divided tray and put all the bits from each barrel of the carb into separate chambers. Parts that fall out unexpectedly and roll under the bench are one problem--but the parts that DON'T fall out are another problem. Scrutinize each hole when you think you have the thing apart--you may discover a check ball corroded into its hole or a gasket still stuck to a boss. The extra gasket left in can lead to serious probs... I like to sketch each rod on a carb on modern ones with all the junk on the sides...sketch should show which end of eac goes up, which hole it goes into (often there are several adjacent holes) and which way it goes through. Some of this might not be apparent on photos. As several people above have said, do not discard anything, keep track of where ALL parts including small gaskets came from, and try to remove gaskets intact because you will be dealing with several options and numerous little round gaskets that seem to differ only microscopically.
Great tips guys, I've got more expirience with Jap bike carbs but I've rebuilt several 97's in the last couple of years. I always have a little pump bottle of auto trans fluid close by. It helps with those stuck parts- ****erflies, caps, jets, screws-everything. It works better than just abuot anything else I've tried. My Dad learned this trick from a locksmith years ago. He said it has something to do with the high level of detergent in atf. It actually starts to break down the rust/corrosion and frees things up. If something is really hung up, just squirt some on and wait about 20 min and come back to it and it should free up nicely. I don't suggest using type F, just because it stinks and dosen't seem to do the job as well, but any other grade of atf is fine. I'm ashamed to admit it, but their is one last ditch trick that I've been known to use: Heat. Not a lot of heat, just a little. When nothing else works, I'll put a carb in the oven and turn it up to about 200 degrees, grab some welding gloves and wait for it to warm up. Don't let the carb sit in the oven any longer than it takes to preheat so as to take advantage of the differing expansion rates between the different types of metal in the parts. Pop the carb out and try to free it up as quickly as possible. It's worked for me before, without causing any warping. WARNING!!!Try not to do it in your wife's oven as it will stink for the next week. It dosen't matter how clean the carb is, it will still stink up an oven.
Good thread! When pulling apart an old carbie, I like to use a hammer-type impact driver to crack the screws on the 1st p***. The impact driver generates its torque from the hammer impact; the combination of the twist and bang keeps the bit in the screw while providing a ****-load of torque - if only for an instant. I've yet to break off a screw inna carb using an impact driver.
Damn right! If it feels like I'm going to wring something off...I put the "heat bottle" to the housing. To me the important part is to get the components apart without damage. A little juditious heat can save a casting sometimes. I use the rather crude cardboard box approach. If i'm afraid of anything falling out or popping off, I separate the two pieces inside the box to catch the pieces. Everything goes into the box...old gaskets, screws, rods, jesus clips and levers. If it was part of the carb, it's in the box. I'm personally too much of a klutz for egg cartons and muffin tins. I'll knock either one over and then all the small parts are on the floor. I know my weaknesses and plan for them.
One other little trick is to clamp a punch into a vice to hold your carb while you re***emble it. I learned about Alodine in Ratbastad's post on carbs so I ordered some. That's why it took so long. a small plasic pail was big enough for the large top of the carb. I did a test with a bent housing. Rat said 20 secs. I dunked it in and I didn't see anything...he must have meant 20 mins. right? nope. It takes a while to work as it dries. Dunk it in for 20-30 secs and set it aside to dry. This will give you an idea of the color change. Left is as bead blasted. Right is after the 20 sec dunk and drying time. Before and after. I really like the way it turned out. Personally I like carbs to look like carbs and not plastic replicas. I can understand if you're building an early sixties show car with 6 candy apple 97s but for me real hot rods have real carburetors. Check the want ads. I need another one like this.
herehttp://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/search.do?freeText=awlgrip%20alodine&page=GRID&history=
Cool post Tommy! Even for guys who've taken apart carbs a time or two... I haven't seen one of those WWs since high school Flatman
super nice tech,the only thing I can add is when I take something apart for the first time I line up everything on the bench as I go. that way when you put it back together you start at other end of the line. I know its retarded but it works for me
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