Carter AFB accelerator pumps

I have concluded that the plactic replacement pumps that come in rebuild kits are garbage. Does anyone know where I can get a handful of the old-style metal/leather pumps?

 

As someone who has spent a lifetime overhauling carbs including hundreds of AFBs I respectfully disagree. My #1 complaint would be the dumb leather pumps. The biggest single improvement made to the last series AFB by both Carter and Edelbrock was to go to a neoprene pump. What sort of trouble are you having?
If you are bent on having one made from a dead cow Jiffy kits (Stanard Ignition Products) still suplies them for the early carbs. I got two just last month for a pair of Pontac 389 carbs.
Don

 

I agree also and the new "Blue" cups are suppose to be alky friendly as opposed to the older red and black pump rubbers. The leather ones are not compatiable with modern fuels and if they set any length of time, get out your oil can and weep some oil down the pump to freshen them up!

 

I am in FL and i have had problems with the Blue pumps swelling and sticking
i am using leather they work good for me
got mine from Vintave speed in So FL for the old 2100 Holly's
Got this # he has a good supply of carb parts John@carbshop 573-392-7378

 

I've had good luck with a light polish of the pump wall with some 800 wet/dry before installing the pump.

 

If your pumps are swelling you are using a carb spray or similar to clean. That in itself is not bad but some of the chemicals in those sprays attack the synthetic pump material and make it soft and sticky. That may be the problem. After cleaning wash the carb body out with something else even gasoline (dip the whole thing in it then remove and blow dry) The problem should disappear.
Don
I discovered this myself by "Accident" a few years ago when doing a quicky carb fix for a friend. Even the residue left behind by the sprays attacks the pump part so i wash them in something else if I use it and often a drop of oil will also help prevent it. You have to remember that many other carbs also use that type and material of pump, successfully I might add .

 

My AFB problem is a sort of long and uninteresting story. The one in question is a Compe***ion Series I installed on my Chevy-powered '49 F1 in 1982. It worked perfectly for 15+ years until I rebuilt it just because it had never been done. Then I had an early bog, although not a terrible one. It's only because I'd had instant throttle response for so long that I noticed it. I used it for a year or so, then the carb sat on a shelf until a month ago, when I pressed it into service to replace a mutilated Edelbrock/Weber peformer/AFB or whatever they call them now. While I was freshening up the carb these issues started coming back to mind, especially when I noticed that the used plastic pumps were bent with a permanent set.

I understand fully that this may just be a tuning issue, and I understand that I may be wrong about these pumps. I just want to get a couple of the old ones so that I can find out for myself.

Please keep the comments and info coming. Thanks!

 

This tip was Posted by CARBKING a while back. Credit for it goes to him...

Carter AFB pump link installation.

This is the little "S" shaped link that connects the accelerator pump rocker arm to the accelerator pump. The link is constructed with a bend in the middle. When properly installed, the link will resemble the letter "S" if viewed from the front, NOT a reverse "S". If viewed from the throttle side of the carburetor, when the lower portion of the link is vertical, the upper portion will be leaning toward the rear of the carburetor.

 

I am not using a card cleaner
it is alcohal and keytone that is put in the fuel now mandated by the GREENIES liberal global warming GOBERMENT

 

Great, I wonder what that ****e is doing to the little rubber tips on the needle/seats?

 

I wish I knew a good source for the leather pumps, as we are having to make them.

Many years ago, the automotive industry went to the neopreme pumps, as they are MUCH CHEAPER but MUCH INFERIOR to leather.

As alcohol has invaded much of the fuel being sold today; we are slowing developing tooling to replace all of the neopreme pumps with leather.

For those that care, the reason for the high cost of leather is that only "crown" leather may be used for accelerator pump cups; and (at least according to our leather supplier) there is a tremendous demand for crown leather overseas for fancy leatherworks.

As many "youngsters" today didn't grow up on leather accelerator pumps, they are unaware that the leather cup should be oiled with a light machine oil prior to installation in the carburetor.

And after a carburetor with a leather pump sits for a couple of years without running, one should dribble a few drops of oil down the pump shaft to reform the cup.

Leather accelerator pumps are virtually bulletproof (maybe another reason the industry went to neopreme - sell more kits!). I personally used one on my shop truck for 420,000 miles over several years. It worked as well at the 420,000th mile as it did at the first mile.

The newer plastic/neopreme pumps are just one of many reasons the clones are permanently banned from our shop!

The leather pumps may be used successfully with any fuel currently on the market.

Jon.

 

One tip for those who do use the neopreme pumps ................ try to start the vehicle daily.

The neopreme will last much longer (maybe up to 3 years) if it never is OUT of the fuel once it has been placed in fuel. With modern fuel as volatile as it is, many carbs will have their fuel completely evaporated (through the bowl vent) in a couple of days. Once the neopreme, even the fluero-nitro blue stuff, will harden when it is allowed to dry, having once been in fuel.

Jon.

 

If you are bent on having one made from a dead cow Jiffy kits (Standard Ignition Products) still supplies them for the early carbs.

As I said before if you want them these kits have them

 

I'm no fuel engineer,but from what I read,modern gas is less volatile being that modern Fuel injection doesn't need vaporization like a carb does for good low speed performance.And less emissions from fuel vapors.But yes,the fuel does seem to empty out of a carburetor engine more quickly than in the past when it sits for a a week.Something strange going on.

 

Do you know where to get or who markets the "Jiffy Kit"? What I'm seeing online is that they are or were sold as Hygrade carb kits by Standard Motor Products. Is that the right one?

 

"Jiffy Kit" is the brand name for kits sold by Standard Ignition.

In the past few years, the companies that own the various brands have merged, bought each other out, etc., to where it is difficult to know the players.

A few years ago, our carburetor parts supplier sold leather pumps; and then suddenly, the component had a newer letter appended to the end of the number, and the new pumps with the same number (and different letter) were neopreme.

And it is possible that material in the pipeline in one area will differ from that in the pipeline in another area.

When in doubt, ASK your parts person.

Jon.

 

This biggest problem with today fuel is that with the ethanol and other adatives that they are now using, the fuel is less stable above 96 degrees. Once the fuels get above 96 degrees they start to become "unstable" and acutally begin to seperate unless under pressure. That is why vehicles with efi do not have any issues with the fuel, becauce the pumps keep the fuel under pressure. Have you noticed more in recent years when you remove the gas cap on really hot days it seems like you hear air escaping...you are. If you take a carbureted engine running with ethanol contaminated fuel and run it at operating temp for a few miles then return home, after you shut the engine off, pop the air cleaner off and take a look at the steam(actually vapors) coming out of the top of your carb. This is the seration process of the methanol based fuels. What is happening is the fuel when it seperates it is actually expanding, which creates pressure, this pressure builds inside the fuel bowls and the fuel will actuall be seeping out of the booster and through the idle channel. this fuel then drips down into the intake base and when the fuel hits the hot intake base it turns into the steam/vapors that you see coming out of the top of the carb.

Air gap type intakes, tunnel rams, and engine which have an intake that is not directly over top of the engine or that does not share any exhaust p***ages with the exhaust side do not have as big of a problem with this. I only know this because we have a fuel distributor here in town, Jerry Brenner, that I have talked to about problems I have been finding and having with carbureted engines. I gave him samples of a clear/white substance that was inside both carbs on a 409 factory dual quad impala that I had rebuilt for a customer. The car ran quite well, but if the guy stopped, shut the car off, and came back to start it after 5-10 minutes it acted like it was flooded. Well it was. When I took the carbs back apart, and found that clear/white stuff inside the fuel bowls, I didn't know what to think. At first I thought maybe if was water or something...maybe sugar and water...I did not know so I called up Jerry and asked him to stop by the shop so I could show him. He was baffled too, especially when I told him everything was new less than 1000 miles ago, and the car owner buys all his gas from Jerry's gas station! About thet same time, a guy with a model T pickup that I built a 327 for was having the same issues, he brought me the truck and sure enough, inside the Q-Jet was the same stuff.
Jerry took the samples of the fuel and stuff from both rides with him to get ****ised. That is how I found out about the problems with ethanol based fuels and carburated engines. The stuff that was in the carbs was actually caused from water. The tanks that gas is stored in at gas stations will have some water get inside them, usually not a significant enough amout to cause any problems.....until ethanol came along.

Ethanol and water/moisture do not mix at all. Jerry told me that the marinas that he supplies fuel to as well as the side island at his station do not contain any ethanol. They are still regular unleaded fuels. Both of my customers use Jerrys fuel, but now just pull up to the side island and pump the straight/regular unleaded fuel into thier cars. Neither one has had any problems since. Jerry highly recomends people with carbureted engines to use dry gas type addatives to help keep the moisture problems under control. I know this was a long post, but thought I'd share it with whomever might care to know this bit of info.

EDIT: Sorry guys I had someone stop by so I had to head out to the shop. A couple of things I've found that really helped with this problem are using the phenolic type(not plastic or aluminum) carb spacer/insulators and also an electric fuel pump. The spacers help substantially to lower the transfer heat that comes from the engine to the carb through the intake manifold. Can help a lot also with "vapor lock" symptems too. The electric fuel pump is benefitial in being able to pump fuel back into the bowls after it has been evaorated out. Like I said earlier, sorry that this is somewhat long, but I thought I'd share it as it may help someone if they have these issues.

 

Are all AFB and AVS pumps interchangeable? I live in a rural area, and some of the parts houses have stuff on their shelves from the 60's. I could look at the kits for cars that had OEM Carters and see if I get lucky. Of course, the guys at most of these places probably won't go for this since they don't seem to like me, no doubt due to my typically unusual requests.....

 

Good info in that post 333Half Evil.

 

Carter used at least 4 different diameters, more than a dozen different lengths, and both articulated and non-articulated pumps in the AFB/AVS carbs.

Jon.

 

One little tip I have, seems to work for me, is I always use just a little CRC or WD40 one all the rubber type parts on all of the carb I reduild. It makes them slip together easier and also not stick when you dry stroke the pump circuits. This really helps to slide the tranfer tubes on holley carbs together...I've got rebuilt carbs out there that have been done for 10+ years and have not had any problems with the non leather accelerator pumps. I honestly have never seen one go bad in just 2-3 years, but here in Michigan the winter is cold and snowy..... By the way, what can you do to the leather ones once the dry up so much they have cracks in them? I've oiled them but they still seem to byp*** fuel through the cracks so I usually replace them.

 

A lot of old time mechanics had lots of baby food jars. One favorite trick was to put an older leather pump in a baby food jar with some light machine oil (completely submerge the leather) and let it sit a few days. Generally (not always) the leather would become pliant and work well.

One thing that causes a lot of the discussion concerning failure/non-failure of the neopreme pumps is the composition of the local fuel. Since we send kits all over the world, we have to address worse case.

I can fill a baby food jar with local pump gas, toss in a brand new blue pump and leave it overnight. The next day, the gasoline has changed to a pretty blue color. We have some pretty bad fuel here in Missouri, but nothing like what is available in other places. The neopreme pumps will work for awhile if you have decent gasoline.

Doing the same test with the red neopreme (transistion from black to blue) would cause the red pump to come off the pump shaft and form a gooey glob in the bottom of the jar.

Jon.

 

Sorry to revive an old thread, but its pretty much on topic.

Does anyone know if the accel pump from a 1400,3,4,5,6 Edelbrock AFB fits the earlier Carter AFB’s… specifically Carter 4294 ( Mopar 273 ci engine) Accel pumps specifically for the early AFB are getting hard to find separately, and having to buy a full rebuild kit just to get the pump plunger makes no sense to me.

 

Never have had any issues with my two 750's on my blower car....Been on it for 10 years and they have neoprene pumps....

 

Thats great, but doesnt really address my question. Trying to establish whether Edelbrock accel pumps will work in an early Carter AFB since they are very similar in design.

 

https://www.carburetor-parts.com/pump-ap213.html

The Edelbrock one worked in my early/mid 70's AFB compe***ion series a few years ago.

 

Thanks, but by the time I pay the currency conversion(I’m in Canada) and shipping (did I mention I’m in Canada?)we’re talking $65+…thats the cost of a whole kit up here. I’m trying to avoid that. I can get an Edelbrock pump for $25 up here, hence my question.

 

What does your pump look like, does it look like the replacement?

 

They both look similar… would need dimensions from the Edelbrock one to compare to my original one.

 

I would think the original pump was leather, never seen that in an Edeldrock.