Carb parts in a parts tumbler

I was thinking about polishing my carbs. The carbs are one barrel, two piece design. Since they are disasembled, I would like the finish to be uniform, and all three carbs match. Ive been looking at some tumblers and was wondering if this is a good idea. For media I was considering steel shot, so nothing gets inside the journals. I would polish each piece seperatly, one piece at a time. Has anyone done this, and is it a bad idea.

 

Most carbs are made of zinc which wouldn't hold a polish very well.

 

Im not woried about the carbs holding a shine, Ive got a little secret that will work for that. Im just woried about damaging them. I also wonder what they might look like after I take them out of a one or two hour tumble.

 

You really need a s**** carb body to develop your polish cycle before throwing good parts in.

Good luck

 

We once sent some junk carb parts to a company doing this as a cleaning method. We always try new methods on junk. Every piece came back with all casting text obliterated; and every hole deformed to the point of needing to be remachined. Parts were both aluminum and zinc. Your experience might be different.

Jon.

 

What were they useing for media. Sounds like something bigger than steel shot.

 

You would need to tumble the carbs with the body ***embled and probably some rubber plugs or such in the bores of the carburetors. YOu don't want to round off the edges of the sealing surfaces or alter the internals. Else it's just a matter of what media you use and how long you want to tumble. Of course you may lose some of the fine features such as engraving, etc. in the process. It all depends what you want to achieve

 

I did it with green plastic media on a couple of 94's. I stripped the carbs then re***embled the bodies & bases because I did not want to damage any mating surfaces. They look nice and work fine but it was a real pain to clean all of the abrasive out afterwards.