New from West Virginia

[Mr Clean]

from N.E. Texas

 

[Irishman999]

Jefferson County here.

I'm pretty unfamiliar with carburetors, what should I look for to see what kinda shape it's in?

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Well usually you dont want one that is leaking gas all over the place, thats a big problem. A carburetor in poor condition can cause vacuum leaks, bad performance and bad mileage. If it idles smooth, is not leaking and smoothly accelerates I would just leave it alone.

Dont be afraid to tear into a carb, I have blindly rebuilt 3 of them in recent years and they worked fine. Head down to the parts store and get a big can of carb dip you can drop the carb in to clean everything before disassembly. Also write down any numbers you find stamped on the carb and take them to the parts store so they can get you the right kit.I always work on carbs on a bath towel so I dont lose the little bb's and springs. With everything apart you just make sure everything is clean and replace the little parts that came with the kit, adjust floats, blow out passages and assemble everything back together. I almost forgot to mention that before you take ANYTHING apart take a ton of pictures of everything so you dont mix up vacuum lines and linkage when you go to put it back together.

If you want to get really serious about carb work find a book store and look for literature, it does not even have to be specific to your carb. If you go for it and run into a snag dont be afraid to post on here.

 

[Irishman999]

Also while I am rambling on and on I should mention what bad fuel can do. I ran tarnished old nasty horrible gas through a carb I had just rebuilt and it wrecked everything. The gas was around 10 years old so you might not have this problem but here is my horror story. The sticky gasoline got on the intake valve guides and caused them to stick closed which broke 3 push rods so I was running on 5 cylinders. I might as well have run super glue through the system because the freshly rebuilt carb was completely stuck, I had to pry everything apart to disassemble, none of the gaskets were re usable so I had to get another kit. After this disaster it was just changing fuel filters every time I filled up with gas. I usually kept a few fuel filters in the glove box so I could change them out every time I was stranded.

If I could go back in time, the smart thing to do would have been remove the tank and get it cleaned or get a new tank to avoid all that bs.

 

[1ATony]

welcome to the site