Carter carb

[Grizz]

I’m in the process of cleaning some Carter carbs off a 54 Pontiac straight 8 flat head. I’ve never worked on anything this old and have little carb experience. I noticed the float while loading up boxes and figured it was a float from a sending unit. That’s the kind of ignorance we re dealing with. What I’m doing is taking one apart while putting another one together from a pile of parts all the while cleaning both. I’m having trouble removing the bowl cover. It’s getting caught on the vacumeter piston link. If I couldremove the link I feel like that would do the trick. What am I doing???

[pont35cpe]

The top cover should come off if all the screws are removed. The link and piston can not be disassembled while top is on. Will the link move up and down? If not, the piston is froze up, if you have movement and all the screws are removed, the cover should come off. It may just be stuck to the gasket. Is the brass fitting(fuel inlet)screwed into the cover, if so, tap upwards on it, cover should pop loose. You could use a thin bladed screw driver(last resort)where the top and main body mate to pop it loose. Be sure all attaching screws are removed.  Good luck..

[Grizz]

Thanks! So I have 3 carburetors. One in good shape, one in bad shape, and the other one in parts. The bad shape one is the one that was giving me trouble. Since you said the bowl cover comes right off I tried it on the good one. Your right it came right off. Your also right on the piston being froze. The good news is after inspecting the good carb and taking the bowl cover off, everything looked really good and clean so I put it all back together and bagged it up for later use. Thanks for the input. Ordered a shop manual today. Next up is the ignition system.