Finished up the rebuild of the Carter WE carb for my Studebaker Champion tonight. Thes single carbs are generally pretty easy to rebuild, and this one was no real exception. In addition the exhaust manifold was pulled and sandblasted and repainted with high temperature black paint. Finally I pulled, blasted and repainted the air cleaner assembly as well.
As these sort of projects go, it was slow going completely tearing down the carburetor. I'm far too anal retentive for my own good and I literally take every single piece apart for cleaning. Even single barrel carbs have lots of little bits on them.
Now, as per standard procedure, there were a few oddities on this one. The rebuild kit comes with gaskets for a number of different carburetors. After sortng through the entire pile of gaskets I had in my hand the one that appeared to fit correctly. I attempted to force it into place until it broke (apparently I wasn't using the right hammer :). So it goes. A little tracing and trimming and I've built a brand new gasket. Now, mind you, I'm still a little baffled as to why the original didn't fit correctly. Gaskets are somtimes just "off" and so I attributed it to that.
Once I was all done, I started putting things away. At this point I tipped up the box that the carb rebuild kit had come in. I was in the process of crushing it when the correct gasket fell out of the box. Well, dang! Then, I was setting away my "spare" carb that I use as a reference and for the occasional missing bit. I paused for a moment to test the play in the carb, it was much heavier than the rebuilt one. A few moments study showed me that the carb I'd pulled off the car had been missing a pretty important spring. D'oh. No wonder why it flooded itself. So, lord knows how long the car had been like that. I don't remember ever messing much with the carb before.
So, because I had a now found gasket and a spring to add in, it was time to tear it all back apart again, put the items in the right place, and put it all back together. I'm always amazed at how slowly the taking apart/reassembly goes the first time, but every time after that it moves at light speed.
With this all done, tomorrow's job is to bolt everything back into Annabelle and get her running. Then I can finish sorting the garage a bit and get back to finishing the Jensen Healey.
Goodnight!
Jody
