The 52 Custom saga - Carter carburetor help?

[Justin Pease]

Hi all! Thanks again to the many continued replies to my other threads regarding this car and it's progress. It's now running following a lot of help from other members, and I'm now in the process of diagnosing some carb issues.

 

I have a Carter carb, I believe it's a 629s (or maybe an E7L3/E7L4, not totally sure), that I believe isn't actually providing fuel as it should. The car ran well for about 1 minute, before it ran out of gas (my fuel can emptied, it isn't running off the tank yet). I refilled my can and pumped the carb, turned the engine over to fill the bowl, etc. with no success - the car just will not start. I popped the top of the carb off and from what my untrained eye can tell, it looks like a spring on the electronic kick-down/fuel shutoff is disconnected and may be keeping fuel from entering the carb body, keeping it all in the carb bowl on the side of the carb closest to the front of the car. I'm not sure if that's actually what is happening, but pumping the accelerator does cause the accel. pump to work properly. If I turn the car over, fuel seems to leak from the seal at the top of the carb profusely - no amount of accelerator pumping causes this to happen. My hunch is that fuel is being trapped in the carb bowl and isn't being allowed into the body, which causes the fuel to overflow out the top of the carb instead of being used for engine power. 

 

That said, I have not pulled the plugs to investigate whether they are wet or not. Does anyone have any ideas, or a diagram I could hook my peepers on?

 

Thanks!!

 

The carb from above, with the top of it removed:

 

Some sort of linkage with a disconnected spring on the underside of the carb bowl:

The carb linkage as it sits normally:

The carb linkage as I hold it up with my finger:

[Justin Pease]

Update - was fiddling around with it this afternoon and the carb caught fire. It was definitely user error, I knew gas was dripping, but didn't think the car had run nearly enough for the gas to spontaneously combust. But it did, and it was not a small fire. The carb was engulfed. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and put the fire out, but I'm now thinking between the amount of dry chem inside the carb and the likely damage the seals sustained from the heat, I'll have to do a full rebuild if not a replacement. I will inspect and clean the carb further tomorrow... Hopefully I don't have to replace it as it seems like it might be hard to find another in good shape. 

[Bloo]

Clean it up REALLY GOOD, drychem is abrasive.....

 

The carb wont run over because it isn't feeding fuel. That is a float or float valve problem. It works like a toilet and fills to a pre-determined level and then shuts off. If the fuel never got used, the float valve would just not let any more in.

 

Float could be bad. Shake it and see if theres fuel inside (should not be). Dunk it in hot water and look for a stream of bubbles. There shouldn't be any. Get a new one if it's bad. They are pretty difficult to repair.

 

The float valve could be bad. If you have a good float, set the level and drop according to the manual, and it still runs over there is a problem with the valve. The settings are in the manual, and also in the sheet that comes with the carb kit. Thee float valve probably has a phenolic gasket or washer sealing it to the body. Could it be split or missing? The needles do wear out. The rubber ones can have the tip split from age or ethanol. The steel ones barely worked in the first place.

 

Another less likely possibility is that the fuel pressure is just too high, and fuel is blowing the needle open. It often happens with electric pumps when someone doesn't look close enough and picks a pump that has more pressure than the original mechanical one. I have also heard of defective mechanical pumps with too much pressure, but it doesn't happen much.

 

[Fossil]

Rebuilding the carburetor is a good idea. Go to NAPA and get a one gallon can of carb cleaner and soak your parts in that. It has a little basket inside to put your parts in. Wear protective gloves when working with this stuff as it isn't good for your skin. 

Good luck. 

[Justin Pease]

Hi again!

 

Just a little update. I inspected the carburetor again and determined that little dry-chem fire extinguisher had actually entered the carb. I cleaned up the outside a bit and then applied some actual brain power as to why it was overflowing - turns out, the float was adjusted fine, and it was missing the float needle. I installed that (it was in very good shape, like it was replaced at one point) and the car runs smoothly, idles, and goes into gear. I'll be opening another topic on some transmission questions I have (I do this so that it's easier for anyone else down the line who has the same questions to find the threads and the answers they need). Thanks all!