1956 Buick WCFB Rebuild

[Beemon]

Finally secured the correct WCFB model 2347S and am just starting the clean up process. The first difference I noticed between the WCFB and the 4GC is that the base of the carb doesn't have the cut out for the heat track. It's just flat. I'm going to be picking up a kit here pretty soon, but I've also seen that there needs to be some type of steel plate underneath the carb. There is no mention of this plate in the shop manual, and my 4GC didn't have the plate either. Also, isn't the WCFB base cast iron and not aluminum? Is this plate necessary?

 

Thanks in advance to replies. I'm pretty excited to get this one going. It's much more complex than the 4GC, which means it'll be much more fun.

[JohnD1956]

As far as I understand, the Rochester carb has a cast iron base.  The Carter has aluminum and you need that steel plate which goes on the intake first, under the carbs base gasket.

[Beemon]

What if I've already blocked off the heat track ports? Do I still need it or will it be okay?

[Airy Cat]

I make the steel plates a little thicker than the stock one.  If you want I will send you one for $10.

[Beemon]

1 hour ago, Airy Cat said:

I make the steel plates a little thicker than the stock one.  If you want I will send you one for $10.

 

Will the thicker plate interfere with air cleaner clearance and front mounting bracket?

 

Also here's the carb. I started brushing it out will it soaked in Dawn detergent and hot water. The water got cold, so I pulled it out. I was told it came off a late 55, but it has the correct service tag. Some of the linkage is rusted, too. I don't have a shop, as some of you know, so for time being I'll just be disassembling the big parts and getting them cleaned up as good as possible and then reassembling with new stuff. The restoration of the carb can wait. I was surprised, that under the dirt I managed to get off the bowls, that the plating still had the green/gold sheen to it. Also looks like the baffle wasn't present when the carb was on the car. I can scrape off whatever this stuff is, oxidized aluminum? When I pulled the dual quad intake off last year and put the stock one back on, I drilled and tapped the intake heat track with all thread plugs since I was told the heat track was irrelevant with modern fuels. Because there was no exhaust burn on the 4GCs, I think it's safe to say I can run the WCFB without the metal plate. Also, does anyone have any tips for unsticking the secondary butterflies?

 

 

I think the rusty throttle arms will go nicely with my rusty power steering pump.

[Beemon]

So I need a little help with the choke spring. In the photos, it doesn't look right. With the choke on, the long ear of the spring is at the bottom and the other side is on the leg in the middle of the rod. Is this correct? This is how the carb came to me.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Beemon (see edit history)

[JohnD1956]

are you asking about the spring that moves the fast idle cam? That would be the one on the shaft between the fast idle cam and the disc behind the cam that is for the rod which connects to the choke butterfly? 

 

If so, Is the concern that the fast idle cam has not moved to the highest step in your pictures?  And further, if that is the concern, can you physically move the fast idle cam to the high step position, or is it just stuck on the shaft?

 

[1953mack]

Buy a gallon of EVAPO-RUST for around $25 at your FLAPS and let the carb soak in it for a couple three or more days. It doesn't contain any acids and you won't get it any cleaner than doing it this way. It's reusable for other metal parts too.

 

Al Malachowski

BCA #8965

"500 Miles West of Flint"

[carbking]

Beeman - worry about the adjustment of the fast idle AFTER you free up the secondary throttle shaft.

 

Jon

[Beemon]

5 hours ago, JohnD1956 said:

are you asking about the spring that moves the fast idle cam? That would be the one on the shaft between the fast idle cam and the disc behind the cam that is for the rod which connects to the choke butterfly? 

 

If so, Is the concern that the fast idle cam has not moved to the highest step in your pictures?  And further, if that is the concern, can you physically move the fast idle cam to the high step position, or is it just stuck on the shaft?

 

My concern is correct spring placement because it looks like the spring fell out of place. 

[Beemon]

Carb soaked overnight, with no progress. Went to the local carb shop today and they said good luck. Thanks.  Walked into the local NAPA today and it was a pretty good business day. A gentleman with a 56 Ford and the local high end back yard hot rod shop owner were in there talking with the in-the-know counter guy. The shop owner specifies in carbs, and told me to use a torch lightly on the throttle shaft and spray with wd-40. If I can't get it loose, he told me to bring it by and he'd get it loose for free. He said it's rare for just the secondaries to seize and that the car was probably driven by some guy who never used them. 

[leon bee]

I don't know if this is an applicable pic, but it's raining outside and I don't feel like doing anything but sitting here:

[Beemon]

Thanks for the pic, that really helps. Looks like my spring is off. Much appreciated! 

[leon bee]

I've scrolled and compared our pictures 25 times and decided I can't tell anything about what is going on there.

[JohnD1956]

I am missing the difference as well. 

[EmTee]

2 hours ago, Beemon said:

He said it's rare for just the secondaries to seize and that the car was probably driven by some guy who never used them. 

 

Hmmmm -- maybe there IS something to that saying: "Use it or loose it!"  (Now, if only I could remember what it is...) 

[NTX5467]

There are lots of use IT or lose ITs!  Even with those extra left-over parts!

 

NTX5467

[Beemon]

I got the throttle shaft unstuck! The torch I bought didn't work, and with my school brains, I figured something else out. I waited until mom was asleep, then filled one side of the sink with hot water and the other with ice. It took only two dunks from hot to cold to get it to spin freely! So now I'm at the rebuild point. Don't mind my lack of organization... I just bought a gasket set because everything else looked good. The only thing I couldn't get out was the top hat with the check ball in it, but I tested the accelerator pump with water and it seems to be working. No sense in fixing something that ain't broke! 

[Beemon]

Tonight was a productive night. I kept the original needle and seat valves because they were metal and not rubber. As stated above, I also kept the original plunger. After the rebuild, I filled the bowls with water and checked the plunger - a healthy spray. I didn't mess with the floats at all - I cradled them and coddled them until they went back in, they looked just like they came out. Metering rods were a bit of a hassle getting into the Jets, but the adjustment was easy enough. Can't wait to put it on the car and see how it does. 

 

As Kosage Chavis would say, "overall an easy task."

 

Edit: the spring I was asking about was on the fast idle cam. On mine, the spring lip was misplaced on the middle step with the spring ear on the bottom step. Thanks to Leon bee, they are both in the bottom step. 

Edited April 22, 2017 by Beemon (see edit history)

[EmTee]

19 minutes ago, Beemon said:

I also kept the original plunger.

 

If it's leather, it will outlast anything that you can buy new today.  Look'n good -- can't wait to hear the result!

[60FlatTop]

Did plugging the heat passages block the flow of heat to the choke element? If it did you might want to go to a ported Bakelite choke housing with tubing and a heat exchanger or convert to an electric choke from a mid-1970's car.

I'm thinking your choke is only going to sense radiant heat from the engine.

Bernie

 

Oh, those two things at 9 o'clock and 12 o'clock can be the most dangerous "tools" ever used in car repair.

Edited April 22, 2017 by 60FlatTop (see edit history)

[JohnD1956]

7 hours ago, Beemon said:

I waited until mom was asleep, then filled one side of the sink with hot water and the other with ice. It took only two dunks from hot to cold to get it to spin freely!

 

Too bad your mom does not realize how resourceful you are.  I never would have thought of hot water and ice!  But I will now.  Excellent!

[Beemon]

The heat passages just preheat the base of the carb for fuel atomization or something. Also I agree, but my weapon of choice was the smart phone with the shop manual on it.  I'm already planning on an electric choke since my manifold heat riser has been broken\I ripped the stuck valve out two years ago. 

[carbking]

RE: the hot H2O and ice

 

Takes a bit longer, but you can get more of a temperature swing by using a ziplock bag and a freezer.

 

Jon.

[Beemon]

The freezer was my next idea if the hot water and ice didn't do it. 

[NTX5467]

In general, the "heat riser" passage is also used to provide a "hot spot" in the base of the intake manifold plenum to help vaporize any "liquid" fuel which might accumulate down there.  Plus it gets the intake plenum heater quicker for more efficient operation.  The reason that "racers" plug it is to keep heat out of the intake itself, other than what migrates in through other hot engine parts.

 

Modern FI engines don't have heat passages in the cylinder heads with the feedback loop operation of the injection system, so they can better compensate for "warm-up" performance with what fuel goes into the manifold itself.  Carbs can't do that.

 

The heat track in the front of the carb base pad was there to help with "carburetor icing" (where ice actually builds up on the venture in certain humid and cool atmospheric conditions.  Remember that fast-moving air has less heat, especially with atomized fuel being sprayed into it, than ambient non-moving air.  The ice would accumulate and eventually strangle the engine until it stalled.  Once thawed out, things "as normal".

 

The other thing which modern engines also have is aluminum cylinder heads (with no heat riser passage in them).  They heat quicker than cast iron, which can help lessen the need for the passage, too.  Even with the earlier cast iron heads and the heat riser passage blocked, in more temperate areas of the USA, little cold-start performance affects have been noticed, past the first minute or so or run-time.

 

BE SURE to use the correct OEM-spec carb base gasket arrangement!

 

Never did use a round table with a white table cloth in carb rebuilds!  Hope everything on there was "clean"!  The "heat trick" is a neat one, but the Dawn soak might work better for oiled ducks, to me.

 

IF, for some reason, the carb does fine on the "main system", but won't idle, check the diameter or the "low speed jet" in the bottom of the idle tubes of the venturis.  They can become partially clogged and restrict idle fuel enough that a "no idle" situation results.  As long as the throttle is on "fast idle", things will seem to work well, but as soon as "hot base idle" is desired, the engine will die.  THAT is a hard situation to track down, by observation (and my own experience)!!

 

Hoping everything works well!

 

NTX5467

[leon bee]

Beemon: I learned something, too. That was just a shot I had in my computer from a few months ago before I went through that carb. I can remember pulling hair out getting those linkages back together. But I just learned to make sure the whole dam piece is in the pic!

 

I always read your posts and have deduced you are just a kid, (I can say that cause I'm pushing 70) but I love your enthusiasm and the way you dive into things. It's inspirational at times. You could do a little book on you and your Buick, I guess nowadays it would be a "blog".

[Beemon]

1 hour ago, leon bee said:

I always read your posts and have deduced you are just a kid, (I can say that cause I'm pushing 70) but I love your enthusiasm and the way you dive into things. It's inspirational at times. You could do a little book on you and your Buick, I guess nowadays it would be a "blog".

Well technically I am 25, but to most on the forums, kid is probably adequate. I don't have time for a blog, but everytime I do one of these I tell myself "I'll make a Me and My Buick" thread and then forget.

 

I can see why people shelf the 4GC and replace it with a WCFB. I am more than happy with what I've built. A little rough at first at idle, but I just went up my carb cleaning hill and everything is as good as new. No float bowl flooding, either, so the original needle and seat worked great. And I pulled the sight plugs - floats are where they should be. My favorite part is no stumble at all. And I'm not sure what it about the operation of the carb it is, but the 4GC felt like a slug in comparison when opening the secondaries. It would suck air and fuel and not get on it. This carb definitely gets on it, so much that I did a right turn burnout around a corner in Low, whereas before it would give me maybe a squeak.

 

I picked up an Edelbrock electric choke at the parts store. The fast idle arm that rests on the choke thermostat is too long and I don't want to cut it. My next plan of attack is to pull the intake, tap a hole in the inspection plate, and run a hot tube from the intake to the carb. I feel this will be the best way to go on it since the exhaust manifold port is all messed up. It's getting warmer, so the choke hanging loose in the time being isn't too bad. It started up fine as I ran errands all day without the choke on.

 

Who wore it better?

 

Edited April 22, 2017 by Beemon (see edit history)

[old-tank]

6 hours ago, Beemon said:

 I'm already planning on an electric choke since my manifold heat riser has been broken\I ripped the stuck valve out two years ago. 

The heat riser has nothing to do with choke heat. ..just fuel vaporization.  The tube from the exhaust manifold supplies hot air to the choke housing (vacuum pulls it in). I brazed a tube to the plate on the bottom of the intake manifold for a heat source..easier than dealing with the exhaust manifold.

 

[NTX5467]

 

GLAD it's all better now!  The "right" carburetor, like the "right" spark plugs, can make more difference than many suspect!

 

NTX5467

[Beemon]

Willis, I really think it's the design of the carburetor. They were both engineered to do the same thing but I think the Carter is just better at managing modern fuels due to its imulsion tubes and rods design. 

[60FlatTop]

Fuel injection is engineering and science. Carburation is art. Swirling air at infinitely varying densities creating pressure differentials is a pretty sloppy way to get fuel into an engine. Add the variations in load demand and it is a wonder they work at all. Being able to pick up each piece on that table and describing why it is there and what it does makes it all fun.

Although, in some instances, it can be a source of constant depression.

[Beemon]

My sister's dog woke me up from my night shift slumber, so in a grumble I went up to NAPA and purchased kit #6101114, which is a choke stove repair kit. I didn't even bother with the crummy heat wrap and compression fittings. I cut a fitting off the choke line from my dual quad setup and flared one end of the aluminum hosing. About the only thing from the kit I really needed was the tap, which I put on a drill bit and ground down with 80 grit sandpaper until I could get it wedged into what was left of the old line. A few light taps and the aluminum tap was set in the old choke stove hole. I slid the old heat wrap off the old, broken line and ran it up to the fitting, then stuck the bare end into the choke stove and bent it accordingly. I forgot to ask about a fitting to go on the threads of the choke as it's technically still morning to me, but after about 2 and a half minutes of warm up, I set the choke so it was fully open. The best part is, you can't see the tap under the exhaust manifold, and the stock heat wrap makes it look stock. My only complaint is the tube is a loose fit inside the tap, so when I feel up for it I'm going to gunk some high temp RTV in the tap and let it goop up around the choke stove tube, giving it a good seal.

 

This just about completes the carburetor swap. I did notice with the engine running at temp, the choke off and the air cleaner off, the pump squirt was intermittent, so I hope that works itself out soon. It was working fine initially, I'm hoping it's just a bit of crud that needs to dissolve it's way out of there.

[carbking]

Beeman - you might find this link useful:  http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Heatstovefabrication.htm

 

And once you fabricate the heat stove, set the choke with the engine COLD, not hot: http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Automaticchokes.htm

 

Jon.

 

 

[60FlatTop]

16 hours ago, Beemon said:

with the engine running at temp, the choke off and the air cleaner off, the pump squirt was intermittent

 

With the engine shut off do you get a solid squirt until the accelerator pump well runs dry? I had that problem with a 4GC myself and never resolved it. Looking back over all the things I did to resolve it without success, I think there may have been porosity between the pump well and a vacuum passage in the body that drew fuel from the well while running. If I had that car today I would wipe the walls of the well with solder and see if I got a solid squirt both running and shut off. It is speculation into the past but I have wasted time on other stuff, too.

 

Bernie

[1956322]

I had that same problem on an old Rochester model B one barrel drove me nuts but never seemed to affect performance

[Beemon]

Okay so the accelerator pump stopped squirting all together now. Before I dismiss the pump, I didn't replace the check ball inside the housing. Any tips on removing the top hat and installing a new one? If it ends up being the accelerator pump, then I may be making a call to a one Carb King...

[carbking]

Ben - I KNOW I explained this on these forums once, but did a search (search is almost as worthless as a Marvel carburetor since the last forum upgrade!), and I couldn't find it.

 

You have found the major issue with the Carter WCFB carburetor! Congratulations!

 

The "top hat" retainer is pressed over a protrusion in the bottle of the pump well. OCCASIONALLY, a pair of needle nose pliers can be used to remove it, but generally this results in the center bar breaking out and the retainer stuck in place.

 

Carter produced two different special tools to remove this retainer. The first works maybe 50 percent of the time, and the other 50 percent results in the same result as the needle nose pliers.

 

The first tool is a slide hammer. I do not have one pictured on my website, so will attempt a verbal picture. The tool is two pieces. The first piece is simply a metal sleeve approximately 2 inches long and maybe 1/2 inch in diameter with a hole in the center. This piece is the slide hammer, and slides over the second piece. The second piece is a rod maybe 6 inches in length, maybe 1/8 inch in diameter with a cap at the top (the anvil for the slide). The O.D. of the rod is just slighly smaller than the ID of the hole in the top hat if there were no center bar. This end is slotted such that it will fit through the half moon holes in the top of the top hat, PLUS each of these two extensions have a horizontal slot milled into the extension so once the tool is inserted into the top hat, the tool may be rotated and the slots will grab the center bar. Using the slide, one can then attempt to remove the top hat.

 

The second tool works 100 percent of the time! HOWEVER: both this tool and the tool described above were fairly expensive when new, so Carter did NOT include them in any of the Carter factory tool kits; they were sold in addition to the kit. So while not made from unobtanium, they are made from very pricium. This tool also may be fabricated, but less easy than the first. You can see a picture of this one. Follow the link, and scroll down the page to T109-279:

 

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Carter_tools.htm

 

Now the verbal description: This tool really is a die. There are four flutes to the die, and the inside is a female pipe thread. Thus the end of the die may be threaded onto the top hat and the top hat pulled out. One can duplicate this tool (or close enough for goverment work) by using a soft rod, a male pipe tap, and then hardening the rod.

 

Of all the special tools Carter made, this tool, the rivet plug removing tool, and the various metering rod tools are the ones you just have to have if working on one of the carburetors using these functions. The others are nice, but most can be replaced by thinking outside the (tool) box.  

 

Maybe one day I will have time to do a write up on special carburetor tools.

 

Good luck.

 

Jon.

[carbking]

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 9:12 AM, 60FlatTop said:

 

With the engine shut off do you get a solid squirt until the accelerator pump well runs dry? I had that problem with a 4GC myself and never resolved it. Looking back over all the things I did to resolve it without success, I think there may have been porosity between the pump well and a vacuum passage in the body that drew fuel from the well while running. If I had that car today I would wipe the walls of the well with solder and see if I got a solid squirt both running and shut off. It is speculation into the past but I have wasted time on other stuff, too.

 

Bernie

Bernie - there are two major causes of this symptom:

 

(1) Incorrect accelerator pump

(2) Incorrect pump discharge valve

 

Discussing (2) first: Rochester did not have as many different mass (weight) pump discharge valves as Carter, but they did use 3 or 4 different. If too light a mass were used, it is possible for the spring not to seal the ball, and fuel to syphon from the pump well causing the pump well to be empty.

 

Not all, but many of the original Rochester pumps have a ball check valve at the bottom of the pump. If present, this ball would lift under pressure, thus allowing air bubbles in the pump cylinder which were created by percolation to harmlessly escape to the area above the pump plunger.  If no check valve is present, the bubbles will create pressure in the pump cylinder under the plunger. Since the air lighter than gasoline (well, it used to be, before ethanol), the bubbles will be right under the plunger. Since the pump discharge passage is at the bottom of the pump cylinder, the pressure will cause fuel to be dispersed by the pump discharge valve, and nearly or totally deplete the pump cylinder of its charge. If there is no fuel in the cylinder, the pump doesn't pump.

 

Edit for spelling (spell check will find words which are incorrectly spelled, but not homonyms)

 

Jon.

Edited April 25, 2017 by carbking (see edit history)

[Beemon]

John, if you were to bet money, do you think it's the accelerator pump or the check ball under the top hat? The pump shot was there after rebuild and now it's gone.