Straight 8 Carter with Holes!

[Aaron65]

I picked up two '50s Buick Carters today.  The nicer looking one is supposed to be for a '52/'53 Special with a 263 (my car!); however, it was apparently used at a school, so they drilled holes in it to keep kids from stealing it.  It's really nice, so I'm wondering if I could fix it.  I may use JB Weld on the fuel bowl, but I'm wondering if the base is weldable.  Is it cast iron or cast steel?  If I slowly built up some weld with my MIG, I'd probably be able to fill that hole (if it's weldable), but I'd have to be careful about the heat.  Any ideas? Between these two I may be able to make a nice carb.

 

Question #2...the dirtier one is missing a tag, but looks very similar.  Is there any way to identify these without the tag?

[SpecialEducation]

Google HTS 2000. 

[Aaron65]

That stuff looks almost too good to be true!  Have you ever tried it out, Matt?

[Pete Phillips]

Should be a number stamped in the side of the base of the carburetor. You can see part of a number in your last photo, but I don't think that is the carburetor number; look on the other side.

Pete Phillips

[carbking]

The "school" carbs are best junked, and used for parts. They were "school" carbs, worked on by many students. All of the parts MAY not be from the same carburetor. Generally, one can keep floats, throttle shaft, choke shaft, choke, butterflies, linkage, etc., but best to trashcan the castings.

 

A few years ago, I received a group of Carter YH carbs, number 2066s. These things are made out of unobtainium, and it really hurt to trashcan the castings, but welding the zinc alloy is a losing proposition; as the casting will fail a few months later just outside the weld. Too bad they had to bore holes in the manual choke casting on those carbs.

 

Over the years, have probably parted out more than 200 of the school carbs.

 

Should you choose to ignore the above advice, suggest carrying a fire estinguisher in the passenger compartment where it is handy.

 

Carter carbs CAN be identified without the tag. The code number stamped on the BOTTOM of the cast iron casting will get you very close. Then just need to compare the parts on the carb with the bill-of-materials on the 2 or 3 carbs using that stamped number to eliminate all but one number.

 

Jon.

Edited September 25, 2016 by carbking (see edit history)

[Aaron65]

Well, today's haul might not be as cool as I thought...it looks like the dirtier carb has a 1 3/16 venturi bore (I assume...it's cast next to the venturis), which means that it's probably a 320 or a Nailhead carb; I'm guessing 320.  I haven't found the casting number yet, but it's pretty dirty.  

[JohnD1956]

can you plug the holes with the lead fishing weights?

[beerczar1976]

Not sure about repairing any of the 2 above carbs, but I will tell you one thing for sure...those bakelite automatic choke covers, if in good condition, and which specific model#s the are, may be worth more than the entire carbs themselves...

[SpecialEducation]

On ‎9‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 4:44 PM, Aaron65 said:

That stuff looks almost too good to be true!  Have you ever tried it out, Matt?

 

I have no personal experience with HTS 2000, but I find it very intriguing.  I'm not buying the cylinder head repair demo in their video (if you can melt it with propane, do you really expect it to last in a combustion chamber?), but I'm sure there are many other applications where it would be perfectly acceptable.